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MAGIC, 

WHITE AND BLACK 


The Science of Finite and Infinite Life 

CONTAINING 

PRACTICAL HINTS FOR STUDENTS OF OCCULTISM 

BY 

FRANZ HARTMAN, M. D. 


“For in our searchings are fullfilled all our desires, and we 
obtain the victory over all worlds.”— Khand, Upanishad. 


SEVENTH AMERICAN EDITION REVISED. 


New York. 

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 

Publishing Department, 

244 Lenox Ave. 

1904. 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two 0«»tM Rocoived 

AUG 22 1904 

Oipyright Entry 

Cttoo^. if„ / ^ o 'f* 

CLASS ^ XX®. N«. 

QtH-l-k 

* co.. * 


Copyright, 1890, 


BY 



■s? 


S \ 

qXA 


JOHN W. LOVELL, 


Copyright, 1901, THE METAPHYSICAL PUBLISHING CO. 


Copyright, 1904, 
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 

C 

Publishing 'Department. 







ILLUSION 





















DESCRIPTION OF THE FRONTISPIECE. 


At the foot of the picture is a sleeping Sphinx , whose 
upper part (representing the higher principles) is human ; 
while the lower parts (symbolizing the lower principles) 
are of an animal nature. She is dreaming of the solution 
of the great problem of the construction of the Universe 
and of the nature and destiny of Man, and her dream takes 
the shape of the figure above her, representing the Macro¬ 
cosm and the Microcosm and their mutual interaction. 

Above, around, and within all, without beginning and 
without an end, penetrating and pervading all, from the 
endless and unimaginable periphery to the invisible and 
incomprehensible centre, the “ Father ” of All, the supreme 
source of every power that ever manifested or may in the 
future manifest itself, and by whose activity the world was 
thrown into existence, being projected by the power of 
His own will and assuming form in His imagination. 

The Omega (and the Alpha in the centre) represent the 
“ Son,” the Absolute having become manifest as the 
Universal Logos or The Christ , the cause of the beginning 
and the end of every created thing. It is One with the 
“ Father,” being manifested as a Trinity in a Unity, the 
cause of what we call Space, Motion , and Substance . 
The “ regenerated ” spiritual man, whose matrix is his 
own physical body, draws his nutriment from this univer¬ 
sal spiritual principle as the physical foetus is nourished by 
means of the womb of the mother, his soul being formed 
from the astral influences or the soul of the world. 

Out of the Universal Logos proceeds the il invisible 
Light ” of the Spirit, the Truth, the Law, and the Life , 
embracing and penetrating the Cosmos, while the visible 
light of Nature is only its most material aspect or mode of 
manifestation, in the same sense as the visible sun is the 
reflex of its divine prototype, the invisible centre of power 
or the great spiritual Sun* 


6 DESCRIPTION OF THE FRONTISPIECE . 

The circle with the twelve signs of the Zodiac, enclosing 
the space in which the planets belonging to our solar sys¬ 
tem are represented, symbolizes the Cosmos, filled with 
the planetary influences pervading the Astral Light . 
Here is the store-house of Life, the Lliaster of Paracelsus, 
in which the Mysterium magnum (the Spirit) is active. 

The activity in the Cosmos is represented by the inter¬ 
laced triangle. The two outer ones represent the great 
powers of creation, preservation, and destruction, or Bra- 
hama, Vishnu, and Siva, acting upon the elements of 
Fire, Water, and Earth—that is to say, upon the original 
principles out of which ethereal, fluid and solid material 
substances and forms are produced. 

The two inner interlaced triangles refer more especially 
to the development of Man. B, C, and D represent 
Knowledge, the Knower, and the Known, which trinity 
constitutes Mind or Consciousness. E, F, and G represent 
the Physical Man (Stoola-Sharira), the Ethereal or Itiner 
Man (Sukshma-Sharira), sidereal body of Paracelsus, astral 
body, Kama rupa, etc., and the Spiritual Man (Karana- 
Sharira, the divine Archseus, the spiritual Soul). The 
centre represents the divine Atma, the personal Christ , 
being identical with the Universal Logos. It is, like the 
latter, a Trinity in a Unity,* receiving its light from the 
Param-Atma and radiating it again from the centre. It 
is the spiritual seed implanted in the soul of man, through 
whose growth immortal life is attained. Its light is the 
Rose of the Cross that is formed by Wisdom and Power , 
being joined together into one and sending its influence 
through the world. But below all is the realm of Lllusion , 
of the most gross and heavy materialized thoughts, sinking 
into Darkness and Death (the Eighth Sphere or Chaos'), 
where they decompose and putrefy, and are resolved again 
into the elements out of which the Universe came into 
existence. 

It will be noticed that the three A’s form a five-pointed 
star in the centre of the double interlaced triangle repre¬ 
senting the six-pointed star. The five is continually seek¬ 
ing to expand and to come in perfect harmony with the 
six, while the latter is forever striving to enter the five and 
to become manifest therein. In other words, the dark and 


* Of the three interlaced A’s only one is distinctly drawn in the 
figure. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE FRONTISPIECE. 


7 


corporified centre seeks for eternal freedom and light] 
while the unlimited light seeks for corporification and form. 
One has a centripetal and the other a centrifugal action, 
and as neither can conquer the other, there results per¬ 
petual motion ; the pulsation of the eternal heart of Divi¬ 
nity ; the law of evolution and involution. If the five- 
pointed star were to become a six-pointed one—if the 
Rosicrucian Rose had six leaves instead of five—this 
turning of the wheel would have an end ; there would be 
Nirvana ,—eternal rest. 




PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION- 


The favor with which “ Magic ” has been received by those 
who are interested in the study of the hidden mysteries of 
Nature, made it expedient to publish a third edition of this 
book. From an insignificant pamphlet, written originally 
for the purpose of demonstrating to a few inexperienced 
inquirers, that the study of the occult side of nature was 
not identical with the vile practices of sorcery, “Magic” 
grew into a book of respectable dimensions, and now this 
new edition is to be still more enlarged, and I hope will 
also become still more useful. 

The most serious objection which has been made against 
this book has been on account of its title; but the causes 
which induced me to select such a title were suggested by 
the purpose for which the book was intended ; nor would 
I at present be able to find one more appropriate for it, 
for “ Magic” means that divine art of exercise of spiritual 
power by which the awakened spirit in man may con¬ 
trol the living elements. 

But if we desire to master any forces whatever, either 
within or beyond our own sphere, it is above all necessary 
to know what these forces are, and we have no better 
means to study the qualities of any internal forces than 
by observing those which are active within ourselves, the 
perception of the processes. The art Magic is the exercise 
of spiritual power, which may be obtained by practising 
self-control, and this power cannot be acquired in any other 
way. The constitutions of all men are fundamentally the 
same, and in each human being are magical powers germi- 
nally or in a latent condition; but they cannot be said to 
exist before they become active and manifest themselves, 
first interiorly, and afterwards in an outward direction. 

It was not my object, in composing this book, to write 
merely a code of ethics , and thereby to increase the already 
existing enormous mountain of unread moral precepts, but 
to assist the student of Occultism in studying the elements 


IO PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION, \ 

of which his own soul is composed, and to learn to know 
his own psychical organism. I want to give an impulse to 
the study of a science, which may be called the “ anatomy 
andphysiology ofthe soul" which investigates the elements 
of which the soul is composed, and the source from which 
man’s desires and emotions spring. 

To arrive at this end the merely intellectual reading of 
books on Occultism is entirely insufficient. The divine 
mysteries of nature are above and beyond the power of 
conception of the semi-animal intellect. They must be 
intuitively grasped by the power of the spirit, which enters 
into the substance of which the world is formed. If we 
cannot perceive a spiritual truth with the eyes of the spirit, 
intellectual reasoning and book learning will not enable us 
to perceive it clearly. Books, dealing with such subjects, 
should not be masters to us to whom we must blindly fol¬ 
low ; they should merely be our assistants. They are 
merely useful to describe the details of things which we 
already—although perhaps indistinctly — see with our 
spiritual perception ; they are merely servants to hold up 
before our eyes magnifying mirrors, wherein we see the 
truths, whose presence we feel in our own soul. 

Jacob Boehme , the great theosophist, says in regard to 
the study of Occultism: “ If you desire to investigate the 
divine mysteries of nature, investigate first your own mind, 
and ask yourself about the purity of your purpose. Do 
you desire to put the good teachings which you may 
receive into practice for the benefit of humanity? Are 
you ready to renounce all selfish desires, which cloud your 
mind and hinder you to see the clear light of eternal truth? 
Are you willing to become an instrument for the manifest¬ 
ation of Divine Wisdom ? Do you know what it means to 
become united with your own higher Self, to get rid of 
your lower Self, to become one with the living universal 
power of Good, and to die to your own insignificant terres¬ 
trial personality ? Or do you merely desire to obtain great 
knowledge, so that your curiosity may be gratified, and 
that you may be proud of your science, and believe your¬ 
self to be superior to the rest of mankind ? Consider, that 
the depths of Divinity can only be searched by the divine 
spirit itself, which is active within you. Real knowledge 
must come from our own interior, not merely from exter¬ 
nals ; and they who seek for the essence of things merely in 


PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. it 

externals, may find the artificial color of a thing, but not 
the true thing itself.” 

Let therefore those who wish to acquire “ Magic,” 
spiritual or divine power, follow this advice; let them rise 
mentally into the highest regions of thought and remain 
therein as its permanent residents. Let them cultivate 
their physical bodies and their mental constitutions in such 
a manner that the matter of which they are composed will 
become less gross and more movable and penetrable to the 
divine light of the spirit. Then will the veils that separate 
them from the invisible world become thinner. 

The following pages are an attempt to show the way 
how Man may become a co-operator of the Divine Power 
whose product is Nature ; they constitute a book which 
may properly bear the title of “ Magic,” for if the readers 
succeed in practically following its teachings, they will be 
able to perform the greatest of all magical feats, the spi¬ 
ritual regeneration of Man. 


v 


% 




PREFACE. 


Our age is the age of opinions. The majority of our 
educated people live, so to say, in their heads, and the 
claims of the heart are neglected. Scepticism is king, and 
wisdom is only permitted to speak when it does not come 
into conflict with selfish considerations. The guardians of 
science attempt to bring the infinite truth within the grasp 
of their finite understanding, and whatever they fail to 
comprehend is supposed by them to have no existence. 
Our speculative philosophers refuse to recognize the 
incomprehensible power of universal love whose light is 
reflected in the human soul; they wish to examine eternal 
truths by the flickering candle-light of their minds’ reason¬ 
ing from the basis of sensual observations; they forget 
that Humanity is a Unity, and that one individual cannot 
encompass the All. They ask for scientific reasons why 
man should be faithful and true, and why he should not 
consider his own personal interests above those of the rest 
of mankind. 

It is universally admitted that man’s final destiny cannot 
depend on the theories which he may have formed in his 
mind regarding Cosmology, Pneumatology, plans of salva¬ 
tion, etc., and as long as he possesses no real knowledge, 
one set of beliefs or opinions may perhaps be as good as 
another; but it cannot be denied, that the sooner man 
frees himself of erroneous opinions and recognizes the real 
truth, the less will he be impeded by the obstacles which 
are in the way of his higher evolution, and the sooner 
will he reach the summit of his final perfection. 

The most important questions seem, therefore, to be : 
“ Is it possible that a man should actually know anything 
transcending his sensual perception, unless it is told to 
him by some supposed authority ? Can the power of intui¬ 
tion be developed to such an extent as to become actual 
knowledge without any possibility of error, or shall we 
always be doomed to depend on hearsay and opinions ? 
Can any individual man possess powers transcending those 


i4 


PREFACE. 


which are admitted to exist by modern science, and how 
can such transcendental powers be acquired ? ” 

The following pages were written for the purpose of 
attempting to answer such questions, by calling the atten¬ 
tion of those who desire to know the truth to a consider¬ 
ation of the true nature of Man and of his position in the 
Universe. Those who believe that they already know it of 
course will not need the instructions which these pages 
contain, but to those who desire to know they may be of 
some use, and to the latter we recommend the advice given 
by Gautama Buddha to his disciples : “ Believe nothing 

which is unreasonable, and reject nothing as unreasonable 
without proper examination.” 

This book was not written for th$ purpose of convinc¬ 
ing sceptics of the fact that phenomena of an occult char¬ 
acter have taken place in the past and are occurring at 
present; though an attempt has been made to prove the 
possibility of mystic occurrences, by offering some explan¬ 
ation in regard to the laws by which they may be pro¬ 
duced. No space has been devoted to lengthy illustrative 
examples of phenomena. Those who require them will 
find such evidence in the books whose titles have been 
given at the foot of the pages. 


PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION. 


It is the usual fate of books that are written to suit the 
spirit of the times, that even if they create a sensation at 
their first appearance, the interest for them soon dies out; 
either because they are superseded by others, giving ex¬ 
pression to more advanced thought, or because their con¬ 
tents were suited only to a limited circle of readers. This 
has not been the case with “Magic, White and Black," 
which was born in India in the year 1884, and the num¬ 
ber of whose readers has increased year by year, so that 
now after sixteen years a new edition is again called for. 
Moreover, the book has been translated into different 
European languages, all of which goes to show that it is 
considered by many as a standard work on theosophy, 
metaphysics and occult science, and there is no doubt 
that it will hold its position as such; because the truths 
which it contains are eternal and will never grow old, and 
the form in which they are represented is generally re¬ 
garded to be comprehensible and clear. 

Magic is that knowledge of the spiritual powers hidden 
within the constitution of man, which enables him to em¬ 
ploy them consciously and intelligently. If he employs 
them for the purpose of attaining perfection through the 
realization within himself of the highest ideal, common 
to all mankind, it is called “white magic"; and he may 
use these powers for beneficent purposes and in harmony 
with the universal law of love and justice; if he employs 
them for low or selfish purposes, or in opposition to 
divine law, he makes the high subservient to the low, he 
degrades the spirit, and with it himself. This misuse of 
divine powers is called “black magic," and it was not my 
object to teach this art, but to warn the readers against it. 

Within the last twenty years the desire to know more 
about that which belongs to the higher or spiritual life of 
man has grown and spread all over the world ; but the 


16 PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION. 

methods of investigation differ. Among the scientific cir¬ 
cles of the West there is observable a general striving for 
materializing the spirit; that is to say, to drag down spirit¬ 
ual truth to the lower material level and make it com¬ 
prehensible to the semi-animal intellect, without taking 
the trouble to try to raise oneself spiritually to those 
heights, where alone the light of truth can be perceived 
in its own purity. This kind of research will never pro¬ 
duce anything higher than opinions and theories, based 
upon external observations and inferences; because the 
speculative intellect cannot rise above itself and spiritual 
truth can be grasped only spiritually. This is what St. 
Paul teaches when he says (I. Corinth., II., 6): “We 
speak wisdom among them that are perfect; yet not the 
wisdom of this world, nor of the great ones of this world, 
that comes to naught, but we speak the wisdom of God 
in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained 
before the world to our glory. 

The other way of investigation, which is the only true 
one and more generally followed in the East, is to spiritu¬ 
alize the body; to render ourselves more spiritual, so as 
to be able to receive, feel and grasp spiritual truth. The 
power to do this is within ourselves, as is taught not only 
by the sages of the East, but also by the Christian bible, 
for it is written : “ Know ye not that ye are the temple of 
God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ?” (I. Cor¬ 
inth., III., 16.) In this Spirit of God in man rest all of 
man’s divine and magical powers. To call the attention 
of the readers to the divine powers existing within them¬ 
selves, thus to lead them to a knowledge of their own higher 
nature, to aid them in entering a higher life and finally to 
state what the greatest mystics of the East and West have 
taught in regard to the nature and the development of 
these powers, has been the aim of The Author. 

Florence (Italy), May 9, 1900. 


PREFACE TO THE SEVENTH EDITION. 


The constantly^ increasing demand for this well known 
work, during the past years, is the cause for the appear¬ 
ance of the present edition. 

‘ ‘ Magic. White and Black ” has done much to awaken 
interest in the mysterious powers latent in man. It has 
stimulated many to attempt the developing of the moral, 
mental, and spiritual sides of their nature. 

The success of the book was assured from the begin¬ 
ning, not only from its elevating teachings, but from the 
easy and popular style in which these teachings were 
presented. 

Previous editions have been circulated in all parts of 
the world. Each reader has acknowledged the helpful¬ 
ness of the book and has created in others the desire to 
possess it. 

XL. 


The Publishers. 



\ 


MAGIC. 


INTRODUCTION. 

“ There is no religion higher than the recognition of the truth.” 

Whatever misinterpretation ancient or modern ignorance 
may have given to the word Magic , its only true signifi¬ 
cance is The Highest Science , or Wisdom based upon 
kfiowledge and practical experience. 

If you doubt whether there is any such thing as Magic, 
and if you desire any practical illustration about it, open 
your eyes and look around you. See the world, the ani¬ 
mals, and the trees, and ask yourself whether they could 
have come into existence by any other power than by the 
magic power of nature. Magical power is not a supernatural 
power, if by the term “ supernatural ” you mean a power 
which is outside, beyond, or external to nature. To sup¬ 
pose the existence of such a power is an absurdity and a 
superstition, opposed to all our experience ; for we see that 
all organisms, vegetable and animal ones, grow by the 
action of internal forces acting outwardly, and not by hav¬ 
ing something added to their substance from the outside. 
A seed does not become a tree, nor a child a man, by 
having substance added to its organism by some outside 
workman, or like a house which is built by putting stones 
on the top of each other ; but living things grow by the 
action of an internal force, acting from a centre within the 
form. To this centre flow the influences coming from the 
universal storehouse of matter and motion, and from there 
they radiate again towards the periphery, and perform that 
labor which builds up the living organism. 


20 


LIFE. 


But what else can such a power be, except spiritual 
power , and as such it is supernatural , although acting 
in nature; for nature is neither Spirit nor God, but a 
product of the Divine Spirit, an image formed in the 
universal Mind by the power of the Divine Will. God is 
All; but All is not God, and the magical powers of Justice, 
Wisdom and Love, etc., are not products of nature, but 
attributes of the spirit. As such they are higher than 
nature, although not outside of it. It penetrates to the 
very centre of material things. It cannot be a mere 
mechanical force; for we know that a mechanical force 
ceases as soon as the impulse which originated it ceases to 
act. It cannot be a chemical force, for chemical action 
ceases when the chemical combination of the substances 
which were to combine has taken place. It must there¬ 
fore be a living power, and as life cannot be a product of a 
dead form, it can be nothing else but the power of Life, 
acting within the life-centres of the forms. 

This Life or Will in nature is a magician, and every plant, 
animal, and man is a magician, who uses this power uncon¬ 
sciously and instinctively to build up his own organism; 
or, in other words, every living being is an organism in 
which the magic power of life acts ; and if a man should 
attain the knowledge how to control this power of life, and 
to employ it consciously, instead of merely submitting 
unconsciously to its influence, then he would be a magician, 
and could control the processes of life in his own organism. 

Now the question is : Can any man obtain such a power 
as to control the processes of life ? The answer to this 
question depends on what you mean by the term “ man.” 
If you mean by “ man ” an intellectual animal, such as we 
meet every day in the streets, then the answer is : No ! 
for the majority of the men and women of our present 
generation, including our greatest scientific lumens, know 
absolutely nothing about that universal thing or no-thing, 
which produces what we call “ Life,” and which we may call 
the “ Will; ” because we know that no action ever takes place 
without an effort of what we call “ Will,” exercised with or 
without relative consciousness. Some of them have not 
even made up their minds whether or not they will believe 
in its existence. They can neither see it nor feel it, and 
therefore they do not know what to make of it. 

But if you mean by “ man ” that intelligent principle, 


tVILL. 


at 


which is active within the organism of man, and which 
constitutes him a human being, and by whose action he 
becomes a being very distinct from and above the animals 
in human or animal form, then the answer is : Yes ! for the 
divine power which acts within the organism of animal 
man is the same and identical power which acts within the 
centre of nature. It is an internal power of man, and 
belongs to man, and if man once knows all the powers 
which belong to his essential constitution, and knows 
how to use them, then he may enter from the passive into 
the active state, and employ these powers himself. 

Absurd as it may seem, it is nevertheless a logical con¬ 
sequence drawn from the fundamental truths about the 
constitution of man, that if a man could control the univer¬ 
sal power of life acting within himself, he might prolong 
the life of his organism as long as it pleased to him; if he 
could control it, and knew all the laws of matter, he might 
render it dense or vaporous, concentrate it to a small point, 
or expand it, so as to occupy a great deal of space. 
Verily, truth is stranger than fiction, and we might see it, 
if we could only rise above the narrow conceptions and 
prejudices which we have inherited and acquired by educa¬ 
tion and sensual observation. 

The most strange things happen continually in nature, 
and hardly attract our attention. They do not seem 
strange to us, although we do not understand them; 
merely because we are accustomed to see them every day. 
Who would be so “ foolish ” as to believe that a tree could 
grow out of a seed—as there is evidently no tree in the 
seed—if his experience had not told him that trees grow 
out of seeds in spite of all arguments to the contrary ? 
Who would believe that a flower would grow out of a plant, 
if he had not seen it, for observation and reason show 
that there is no flower in the stalk ? Nevertheless, flowers 
grow, and cannot be disputed away. 

Everywhere in nature the action of an universal law is 
manifest, but we cannot see the law itself. Everywhere 
we see the manifestations of a will; but those who seek 
for the origin of Will within their own brains will seek for 
it in vain. 

The art of magic is the art of employing invisible or so- 
called spiritual agencies to obtain certain visible results. 
Such agencies are not flitting about in space, ready to come 


22 


MAGIC . 


at the command of anyone who has learned certain incan¬ 
tations and ceremonies; but they consist principally in 
the unseen but nevertheless powerful influences of the 
Emotions and the Will, of desires and passions, thought 
and imagination, love and hate, fear and hope, faith and 
doubt, etc., etc. They are the powers of what is called 
the soul; they are employed everywhere and by everybody 
every day, consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwil¬ 
lingly, and while those that cannot control or resist such 
influences, but are controlled by them, are passive instru¬ 
ments, “ Mediums ” through which such unseen powers 
act, and often their unwilling slaves : those who are able 
to guide and control such influences by gaining control 
over themselves, are, in proportion to their controlling 
capacity, active, and powerful, and true Magicians. We 
see, therefore, that with the exception of irresponsible 
persons, every one who has any will power is, in so far as 
he exercises that power, an active Magician ; a white 
magician if he employs them for good, a black magician if 
he uses them for the purposes of evil. 

We all cannot honestly say “ we have life ; 11 for life 
does not belong to us, and we cannot control or mono¬ 
polize it. All we can say without arrogance and presumption 
is that we are instruments through which an universal 
principle that produces what we call “Life" manifests 
itself in the form of a human being. We are all Mediums , 
through which an universal Will which causes Life acts. 
He who thinks that he has any power whatever of his own, 
thinks foolish; for all the powers he has are lent him by 
nature, or—more correctly speaking—by that eternal 
spiritual power, which acts in and from the centre of 
nature, and which men have called “ God,” because they 
have found it to be the source of all good. 

No one will deny that Man, besides having physical 
powers, is also temporally endowed with mental and 
spiritual energies. We love, respect or obey a person, 
not on account of his superior bodily strength, but on ac¬ 
count of his intellectual and moral worth, or while we are 
under the spell of some real or imaginary authority that 
we may believe him to possess. A king or a bishop has, 
as a person, not necessarily any more power than his 
lackey or butler, and must make himself known before he 
will be obeyed ; a captain may be the weakest man in his 


THE MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM. 


2 3 


company and still his soldiers obey him. We love beauty, 
harmony, and sublimity, not on account of their usefulness 
for material purposes, but because they satisfy an inner 
sense, which does not belong to the physical plane. 

What would be a world without the magic power of 
love of beauty and harmony ? How would a world look 
if made after a pattern furnished by the modern rational¬ 
istic philosopher ” ? A world in which beauty and the power 
of good were not recognized could be nothing else but a 
world of maniacs. In such a world art and poetry could 
not exist, justice would become a convenience, honesty be 
equivalent with imbecility, to be truthful would be to be 
foolish, and Self-interest the only god worthy of any con¬ 
sideration. 

Magic is that science which deals with the mental powers 
of man, and shows what control he may exercise over him¬ 
self and others. In order to study the powers of man it is 
necessary to investigate what Man is, and what relation he 
bears to the universe, and such an investigation, if properly 
conducted, will show that the elements which compose the 
essential man are identical with those we find in the uni¬ 
verse ; that is to say, that the universe is the Macrocosm , 
and man—its true copy—the Microcosm. 

Microcosmic man and the Macrocosm of nature are one. 
How could it be possible that the Macrocosm should con¬ 
tain anything not contained within the Microcosm, or that 
Man should have something within his organism which 
cannot be found within the grand organism of nature ? Is 
not man the child of nature, and can there be anything 
within his constitution which does not come from his eter¬ 
nal father and mother ? If man’s organization contained 
something unnatural, he would be a monster, and nature 
would spew him out. Everything contained in nature can 
be found within the organism of man, and exists therein 
either in a germinal or developed state ; either latent or 
active, and may be perceived by him who possesses the 
power of self-knowledge. 

We are born into a world in which we find ourselves 
surrounded by physical objects. There seems to be still 
another—a subjective—world within us, capable of receiv¬ 
ing and retaining impressions from the outside world. 
Each one is a world of its own, with a relation to space 
different from that of the other. Each has its days of sun- 


24 


RELIGION AND SCIENCE . 


shine and its nights of darkness, which are not regulated 
by the days and nights of the other; each has its clouds 
and its storms, and shapes and forms of its own. 

If we ask of science to teach us the true nature of these 
worlds and the laws that govern them—but physical science 
deals only with external forms—she gives only a partial 
solution of the problems of the objective world, and leaves 
us in regard to the subjective world entirely in the dark. 
Modern science classifies phenomena and describes events, 
but to describe how an event takes place is not sufficient 
to explain why it takes place. To discover causes, which 
are in themselves the effects of unknown primal causes, 
is only to evade one difficulty by substituting another. 
Science describes some of the attributes of things, but the 
first causes which brought these attributes into existence 
are unknown to her, and will remain so, until her powers 
of perception will penetrate in the unseen. 

Besides scientific observation there claims to be still 
another way to obtain knowledge of the mysterious side of 
nature. The religious teachers of the world claim to have 
sounded the depths which the scientists cannot reach. 
Their doctrines are supposed by many to have been 
received through certain divine or angelic revelations, pro¬ 
ceeding from a supreme, infinite, omnipresent, and yet 
personal—and therefore limited— Being —the existence of 
which has never been proved. Where is the proof that 
such revelations are either true or divine ? Surely, a 
blind belief in the contents of a book cannot be real know¬ 
ledge ; nor can it be reasonably supposed that the theo¬ 
logians themselves have any actual knowledge of what 
they teach. We dare say that there are but few clergymen 
who are personally acquainted with God. Nevertheless 
thousands are engaged in teaching others that which they 
themselves do not know, and in spite of a very great 
number of religious systems there is comparatively little 
religion at present upon the Earth. 

The term Religion is derived from the Latin word re- 
ligere, which may be properly translated “ to bind back,” 
or to “ relate.” Religion, in the true sense of the term, 
implies that science which examines the link which exists 
between man and the cause from which he originated, or 
in other words, which deals with the relation which exists 
between man and the world of causes. True religion is 


MYSTIC. 


25 


therefore a science far higher than a science based upon 
mere sensual perception, but it cannot be in conflict with 
what is true in science. Only what is false in science must 
necessarily be in conflict with what is true in religion, and 
what is false in religion is in conflict with what is true in 
science. True religion and true science are ultimately one 
and the same thing; a religion that clings to illusions, and 
an illusory science, are equally false, and the greater the 
obstinacy with which they cling to their illusions the more 
pernicious is their effect. 

There should a distinction be made between “ religion ” 
and “religionism between “science” and “ scientism 
between “ mystic ” and “ “ mysticism.” 

The highest aspect of Religion is practically the union of 
man with the Supreme First Cause, from which his essence 
emanated in the beginning. 

Its second aspect teaches tne relations existing between 
that Great First Cause and Man; in other words, the re¬ 
lations existing between the Macrocosm and Microcosm. 

In its lowest aspect religionism consists of the adulation 
of dead forms, of the worshipping of fetiches, of fruitless 
attempts to wheedle oneself into the favor of some imagin¬ 
ary deity, to persuade “ God ” to change his mind, and to 
try to obtain some favors which are not in accordance with 
justice. 

Science in her highest aspect is the self-knowledge of the 
fundamental laws of Nature, and is therefore a spiiitual 
science, based upon the knowledge of the spirit within our 
own selves. 

In her lower aspect it is a knowledge of external phe¬ 
nomena, and the secondary or superficial causes which 
produce the latter, and which our scientism mistakes for 
the final cause. 

In its lowest aspect scientism is a system of observation 
and classification of external phenomena, of the causes of 
which we know nothing. 

Religionism and Scientism are continually subject to 
changes. They have been created by illusions, and die 
when the illusions are over. True Science and true 
Religion are one, and if joined to Practice, they form the 
three-lateral pyramid, whose foundations are upon the 
earth, and whose point reaches to heaven. 

Mystic in its true meaning is spiritual knowledge ; 


MYSTICISM. 


30 

that is to say, the knowledge of spiritual and “ super- 
sensual ” things, perceived by the spiritual powers of per¬ 
ception. These powers are germinally contained in every 
human organization, but only few have developed them 
sufficiently to be of any practical use.. 

Mysticism is a hankering after illusions, a desire to pry 
into mysteries which we cannot comprehend, a craving to 
satisfy our curiosity in regard to what we ought not to know, 
as long as we have not the power to understand it. It is the 
realm of fancies, of dreams, the paradise of ghost-seers, 
and of spiritistic tomfooleries of all kinds. 

But which is the true religion and the true science? 
There is no doubt that a definite relationship exists 
between Man and the cause that called humanity into ex¬ 
istence, and a true religion and a true science must be the 
one which teaches the true terms of that relation. If we 
take a superficial view of the various religious systems of 
the world, we find them all apparently contradicting each 
other. We find a great mass of apparent superstitions and 
absurdities heaped upon a grain of something that may be 
true. We admire the ethics and moral doctrines of our 
favorite religious system, and we take its theological 
rubbish in our bargain, forgetting that the ethics of nearly 
all religions are essentially the same, and that the rubbish 
which surrounds them is not real religion. It is evidently 
an absurdity to believe that any system could be true, un¬ 
less it contained the truth. But it is equally evident that 
a thing cannot be true and false at the same time. The 
truth can only be one. The truth never changes ; but we 
ourselves change, and as we change so changes our aspect of 
the truth. The various religious systems of the world can¬ 
not be unnatural or supernatural products. They are all 
the natural outgrowth of man’s evolution upon this globe, 
and they differ only in so far as the conditions under which 
they came into existence differed at the time when they 
began to exist; but true religion is supernatural; for it is 
that clinging of the soul of man to that which is higher 
than his semi-animal and impermanent nature. Each in¬ 
tellectual human being, except one blinded by prejudice, 
recognizes the fact that each of the great religious systems 
of the world contains certain truths, which we intuitively 
know to be true ; and as there can be only one fundamen¬ 
tal truth, so all these religions are branches of the same 


TRUTH. 


27 


tree, even if the forms in which the truth manifests itself 
are not alike. The sunshine is everywhere the same, only 
its intensity differs in different localities. In one place it 
induces the growth of palms, in another of mushrooms; 
but there is only one Sun in our system. The processes 
going on on the physical plane have their analogies in the 
spiritual realm, for there is only one Nature, one Law. 

If one person quarrels with another about religion, he 
cannot have the true religion, nor can he have any true 
knowledge. The only true religion is the religion of Love, 
and love does not quarrel. Love is an element of Wisdom, 
and there can be no wisdom without love. Each species 
of birds in the woods sings a different tune; but the prin¬ 
ciple which causes them to sing is the same in each. They 
do not quarrel with each other, because one can sing 
better than the rest. Moreover, religious disputations, 
with their resulting animosities, are the most useless things 
in the world ; for no one can combat the darkness by 
fighting it with a stick; the only way to remove darkness 
is to kindle a light, the only way to dispel spiritual igno¬ 
rance is to let the light of knowledge that comes from the 
centre of love shine into the heart. 

All religions are based upon internal truth, all have an 
outside ornamentation which varies in character in the 
different systems, but all have the same foundation of 
truth, and if we compare the various systems with one 
another, looking below the surface of exterior forms, we 
find that this truth is in all religious systems one and the 
same. In all this truth has been hidden beneath a more or 
less allegorical language, impersonal and invisible powers 
have been personified and represented in images carved in 
stones or wood, and the formless and real has been pictured 
in illusive forms. These forms in letters, and pictures, and 
images are the means by which truths may be brought to 
the attention of the unripe Mind. They are to the grown¬ 
up children of all nations what picture-books are to small 
children who are not yet able to read, and it would be as 
unreasonable to deprive grown-up children of their images 
before they are able to read in their own hearts, as it 
would be to take away the picture-books from little children 
and to ask them to read printed books, which they cannot 
yet understand. 

Very stupid indeed and insignificant would be the stories 


FICTION. 


28 

contained in the Bible, and in other religious books, if the 
personal events described therein were referring merely to 
certain occurrences having happened in the lives of certain 
individuals who lived some thousands of years ago, and 
whose biography can seriously interest no one to-day. 
What do we care now about the family affairs of a man 
called Adam or Abraham ? Why should we want to be 
interested in knowing how many legitimate or illegitimate 
children the Patriarchs had, and what became of them ? 
What is it to us whether or not a man by the name of 
Jonah was thrown into the water and swallowed by a 
whale? What happens to-day in the various countries of 
Europe is more interesting and important for us to know 
than what happened at the court of Zerubabel or Nabu- 
chodonoser. 

But fortunately for the Bible and—if we only knew 
now to read it—fortunately for us, the stories contained 
therein are by no means merely histories of persons who 
lived in ancient times, but they are allegories and myths 
having very often a very deep meaning, of which our ex¬ 
pounders of the Bible, as well as its critics, usually know 
very little. Fictions are necessary to represent truths; 
but they should not be mistaken for the truth itself. The 
truth is eternal, and cannot be grasped by that which is 
neither eternal nor true. We need fictions to bring it 
within our grasp as long as we have ourselves merely a 
fictitious existence. 

The men and the women of the old and new “ testa¬ 
ment ” are much more than mere persons supposed to 
have existed at that time. They are personifications of 
eternally active spiritual forces, of which physical science 
does not even know that they exist; and their histories 
give an account of their action, their interrelations within 
the Macrocosm and its counterpart the Microcosm ; they 
teach the history of the evolution of mankind in its 
spiritual aspect. 

If our natural philosophers would study the Bible in its 
esoteric and spiritual aspects, they might learn a great 
many things which they desire to know. They might 
learn to find out what are the true powers of the “ living 
faith,” and which are required to produce occult pheno¬ 
mena at will; they might find instruction how to trans¬ 
mute lead or iron into pure gold, and to transform 
animals into gods. 


INTUITION. 


29 


But it is a truth, based upon natural laws, that man can 
see nothing except that which exists in his mind. If his 
mind is filled with illusions, he will see nothing but illu¬ 
sions, and the deepest of symbols will be pictures without 
meaning to him. 

If our children—the big ones as well as the little ones 
—are only looking at the pictures without learning the 
text, they are apt to grow to believe the pictorial repre¬ 
sentations to be the very things they are intended to 
represent ; they become accustomed to forget that forms 
are only illusions, and that formless realities cannot be 
seen. It is so much easier to believe than to think. 
Children should not linger over their picture-books so long 
as to neglect their higher education. Humanity has out¬ 
grown the infancy of its present cycle, and asks for more 
intellectual food ; the age of superstition is passing away, 
and the demand is not for opinions but for knowledge, and 
knowledge cannot be obtained without an effort. The 
expressed opinion of one person can only give rise to 
knowledge in another, if corroborated by the same or a 
similar experience of the latter. A person can only truly 
believe that which he knows, and he can only actually 
know that which he has perceived. 

There is a difference between perceiving and under¬ 
standing the truth. We may perceive the truth with our 
heart, and we understand it with our brain. In other 
words: We may feel the truth intuitively, and examine it 
intellectually. If our present generation would cultivate 
the faculty of feeling the truth with their hearts, and after¬ 
wards examine that which they feel by means of their in¬ 
tellect, we would soon have a far better and happier state 
of society everywhere. But the great curse of our age is 
that the intellectual faculties are strained to their utmost 
power of resistance, to examine the external form of things 
intellectually without perceiving their spiritual character 
by the power of intuition. 

Men, instead of living in the sanctuary of the temples 
which they inhabit, are continually absent from there, 
and reside in the garret under the roof, looking out through 
the windows of the garret after the illusions of life. Day 
and night they stand there and watch, careful that none of 
the passing illusions may escape their observation, and 
while their attention is absorbed by these idle shows, the 


3° 


OPINION. 


thieves enter the house and the sanctuary without being 
seen, and steal away the treasures. Then at the time 
when the house is destroyed, and death appears, the soul 
returns to the heart and finds it empty and desolate, and 
all the illusions that occupied the brain during life fly away, 
and man is left poor indeed, because he has not perceived 
the truth in his heart. 

The real object of a religious system should therefore be 
to teach a way by which a person may develop the power 
to perceive the truth. To ask a man to believe in the 
opinion expressed by another, and to remain satisfied with 
such a belief, is to ask him to remain ignorant, and to 
trust to another person more than to himself. A person 
without knowledge can have no conviction—no faith, and 
his adoption of one particular system depends on the cir¬ 
cumstances under which he is born, or brought up, or sur¬ 
rounded. He is most liable to adopt that system which 
his parents or neighbors have inherited or adopted, and if 
he changes from one system to another, he, generally 
speaking, does so from mere sentimentality, or on account 
of some selfish consideration, expecting to obtain some 
benefit to himself by that change. From a spiritual stand¬ 
point he will gain nothing under such circumstances ; 
because, to approach the truth, he must love the truth for 
its own sake, and not on account of the personal advantage 
that it may bring; from an intellectual standpoint he will 
gain little or nothing by exchanging one superstition for 
another. The only way by which Man can hope to arrive 
at the truth is to love the truth on account of its being the 
truth, and to free his mind from all prejudices and predi¬ 
lections, so that its light may penetrate into the mind. 

What is the religionism of to-day, but a religion of fear ? 
Men do not wish to avoid vice, but they wish to avoid the 
punishment for having indulged in vice. Their experience 
teaches them that the laws of nature are unchangeable, but 
nevertheless they continue to act against the universal 
law. They claim to believe in a God who is unchangeable, 
and yet they implore His assistance if they desire to nreaK 
His own law. When will they rise up to the true con¬ 
ception that the only possible God is that universal power 
which acts through the law, which is itself the Law, and 
cannot be changed? To break the law is identical with 
breaking the God within ourselves, and the only way to 


SELF-KNO WLEDGE . 


3 1 

obtain forgiveness after He is broken is to restore the law, 
and to create a new God within ourselves. 

It may be well to study the opinions of others, and to 
store them up in the book of our memory, but we should 
riot accept them on any merely external evidence, nor 
reject them without investigation, but weigh them in the 
scales of reason and justice. Even the teachings of the 
world’s greatest Adepts, unimpeachable as they may be, 
can only instruct us, but give us no real knowledge. They 
can show the way, but we must take ourselves the steps on 
the ladder. Were we to recognise their dictum as the final 
aim, to be accepted without any further investigation, we 
should again fall back into a system of belief for the sake 
of authority. Knowledge gives strength, doubt paralyzes 
the will. A man who does not believe that he is able to 
walk will not be able to walk as long as he does not 
believe; a man who knows by experience that he can 
command himself will be able to do so. He who can com¬ 
mand himself can command that which is below him, 
because the low is controlled by the high, and there is 
nothing higher than Man having obtained a perfect know¬ 
ledge of Self. 

The knowledge of Self is identical with Self-knowledge, 
because the true self of Man is God; it is unlimited, and 
knowing its own self it knows everything by its own power. 
It is knowledge independent of any opinions, dogmas or 
doctrines, no matter from what authority they may pro¬ 
ceed. If we study the teachings of any supposed authority 
external to our own selves, we at best know what the 
opinion of such an authority is in regard to the truth, but 
we do not necessarily arrive thereby at a self-knowledge of 
the truth. If we, for instance, learn what Christ taught 
about God, we are only informed of what he knew or 
believed to know, but we cannot know God for all that, 
unless we awaken to a realization of his presence within 
our own heart. The knowledge of even the wisest of all 
men, if communicated to us, will be to us nothing more 
than an opinion, as long as it is not experienced within our 
own selves. As long as we cannot penetrate within the 
soul of Man, we can know little more about him but his 
corporeal form ; but how could we penetrate within the 
soul of another as long as we have not the capacity to enter 
our own ? Therefore the beginning of all real knowledge 
is the knowledge of Self. 


3* 


SPECULATIONS. 


Does “ rationalistic ” speculation confer any true know- 
ledge of Man ? The range of her power of observation is 
limited by the perceptive power of her physical senses, 
assisted by physical instruments; she has no means to 
investigate that which transcends physical sense, she can¬ 
not enter the temple of the unseen, she only knows the 
external form in which the reality dwells. She only knows 
the illusive form of man, she knows nothing whatever of 
the essential and real man. In vain shall we look to her 
for the solution of the problem, which thousands of years 
ago the Egyptian Sphinx propounded. 

Do the popular religious systems confer any true know¬ 
ledge of Man ? The conception which the average theolo¬ 
gian has of the mysterious being called man is as little as 
that of the professor of modern science. He looks upon 
man as a personal being, isolated from other personal 
beings around whose infinite little personality centres the 
interests of the infinitely great. He forgets that the 
founders upon the principal religious systems taught that 
the original and essential man (Adam) was an impersonal 
power, that the real man (the Christ) is a whole and cannot 
be divided, and that the personal man is only the tempor¬ 
ary temple in which the universal spirit resides.* 

The misconceptions arising from ignorance of the true 
nature of Man are the cause that the popular religious 
opinions held by the average theologians in Christian and 
Pagan countries are based upon selfishness, contrary to the 
spirit of that which true religion teaches. Christians and 
“ Heathens ” clamor for some personal benefit to be con¬ 
ferred by some imaginary person upon their insignificant 
personal self, either here or in the problematical hereafter. 
Each one of such short-sighted persons wants to be saved 
himself above all, the salvation of the rest is a matter of 
second consideration. They expect to obtain some benefit 
which they do not deserve, to wheedle themselves into the 
favor of some personal deity, to cheat the “ devil ” of his 
just dues, and to smuggle their imperfections into the 
kingdom of Heaven. 

The only reasonable object which any external religi ous 
system can possibly have, is to elevate man from a If wer 


* Bible : Corinth, iii. 16. 



SELFISHNESS. 


33 


state to a higher one, in which he can form a better con¬ 
ception of his true dignity as a member of the human 
family. If there is any possibility of imparting to a man a 
knowledge of self, the churches are the places where such 
a knowledge should be imparted; but to accomplish this 
the claims of the spirit should predominate over those of 
the form, the interests of religion and the interests of the 
“ Church ” would have to cease to be amalgamated, and 
the Church should again be founded upon the rock of the 
living faith instead of the craving to obtain some selfish 
personal benefit in this world or in the hereafter. 

He who is led by selfish considerations cannot enter a 
heaven where personal considerations do not exist. He 
who does not care for Heaven but is contented where he 
is, is already in Heaven, while the discontented will in 
vain clamor for it. To be without personal desires is to 
be free and happy, and “ Heaven ” can mean nothing else 
but a state in which freedom and happiness exist. The 
man who performs beneficial acts induced by a hope of 
reward is not happy unless the reward is obtained. 

A man who performs a good act with the hope of reward 
is not free. He is the servant of Self, and works for the 
benefit of Self and not for absolute Good. It is, therefore, 
not the power of Gocd which will reward him, he can only 
expect that reward from his own personal Self. 

\ The man who performs evil acts, induced by a selfish 
motive, is not freey He who desires evil and is restrained 
by fear is not his own master. He who recognizes the 
supreme power of the universe in his own heart has become 
free. He whose will is swayed by his lower personal self 
is the slave of his person, but he who has conquered that 
lower self enters the higher life. 

The science of Life consists in subduing the low and 
elevating the high. Its first lesson is how to free oneself 
from the love of self, the first angel of evil. 

This “ Self” is composed of a great many selves or Es, 
of which each one has his peculiar claims, and whose 
demands grow in proportion as we attempt to satisfy them. 
They are the semi-intellectual forces of the soul that would 
rend the soul to pieces if they were allowed to grow, and 
which must be subdued by the power of the real Master, 
the superior “ I ”—the Spirit. 

These “ /s ” are the Elementals, of which has been said 
2 


34 


EGO'S. 


so much in occult literature. They are not imaginary 
things, but living forces, and they may be perceived by him 
who has acquired the power to look within his own soul. 
Each of these forces corresponds to some desire, and if it 
is permitted to grow is symbolized by the form of the ani¬ 
mal which corresponds to its nature. At first they are 
thin and shadowy, but as the desire which corresponds to 
them is indulged in, they become more and more dense, 
and gain great strength as our desires grow into a passion. 
The lesser Elementals are swallowed by the bigger ones, 
the little desires are absorbed by the stronger ones, 
until perhaps at last one Master Passion, one powerful 
Elemental remains. They are described as having the 
form of snakes and tigers, hogs, insatiable wolves, etc., but 
as they are often the result of a mixture of human and 
animal elements, they do not merely exhibit purely animal 
forms ; but frequently they look like animals with human 
heads, or like men with animal members; they appear 
under endless varieties of shapes, because there is an end¬ 
less variety of correlations and mixtures of lust, avarice, 
greed, sensual love, ambition, cowardice, fear, terror, hate, 
pride, vanity, self-conceit, stupidity, voluptuousness, self¬ 
ishness, jealousy, envy, arrogance, hypocrisy, cunning, 
sophistry, imbecility, superstition, etc., etc. 

They constitute the false “ Ps ” or “ Egos ” in man ; for 
even if man in his self-conceit may imagine that he knows 
his true self, and that this self is only one, a deeper thought 
will convince him that he is not self-existent, but an ever, 
changing product of nature. He will then see that, as long 
as God has not awakened in his soul, he is not truly self- 
conscious ; but that it is Nature, having become self-con¬ 
scious in his organism; creating therein these various 
states of self-consciousness, each of which he mistakes for 
his own true self. 

These Elementals live in the soul-realm of man as long 
as he lives, and grow strong and fat, for they live on his 
life-principle, and are fed by the substance of his thoughts. 
They may even become objective to him, if during a 
paroxysm of fear or in consequence of some disease they 
are enabled to step out of their sphere. They cannot be 
killed by pious ceremonies, nor be driven away by the ex¬ 
hortations of a clergyman ; they are only destroyed by the 
power of the spiritual Will of tnan, which annihilates 


INTELLECTUAL GERMS. 


3 $ 

them as the light annihilates darkness, or as a stroke of 
lightning rends the clouds. 

Only those who have awakened to spiritual conscious¬ 
ness can have that spiritual will, of which the non-regene- 
rated know nothing. But those who are not yet so far 
advanced may cause those elementals to die slowly, by 
withdrawing from them the food which they require, that 
is to say, by avoiding all desires and thoughts which cor¬ 
respond to their character. They will then begin to wane, 
to get sick, die and putrefy like a member of the body which 
has become mortified. A line of demarkation will be 
formed in the soul-body of man, there may be “ inflamma¬ 
tion ” and suffering. A process, similar to that which takes 
place if a gangrenous part of the physical body is thrown 
off, takes place; and at last the putrid carcass of the Ele¬ 
mental drops off and dissolves. 

These descriptions are neither fancies nor allegories. 
Theophrastus Paracelsus, Jacob Boehme , and many other 
writers on Occultism write about them, and a due appre¬ 
ciation of their doctrines will go far to explain many 
occurrences mentioned in the history of witchcraft, and in 
the legends of the lives of the saints. 

But there are not merely animal germs within the realm 
of the soul of man. In each human constitution there are 
also the germs which go to make up a Shakespeare, a 
Washington, Goethe, Voltaire, a Buddha, or Christ. There 
are likewise the germs which may grow to make a Nero, 
Messalina or Torquemada; and each germ may develop 
and take a form, and ultimately find its expression and re¬ 
flection in the outward form, as much as the density of the 
material atoms, which are slow to transform, will permit; 
for each character corresponds to a form, and each form to 
a character. 

Man's microcosm is a garden in which all kinds of living 
plants grow. Some are poisonous, some are wholesome 
plants. It rests with man to decide which germs he wants 
to develop into a living tree, and that tree will be himself. 
There are within him the germs of matter and soul and 
of spiritual activity ; in him are the seeds from which 
spring intellectual and emotional functions, and the deepest 
of all is the hidden will at the centre; the spirit, which is 
to become the immortal man; the true Self. 

To accomplish this task it is not necessary to become a 


3 * 


RE NUNC I A TION. 


misanthrope and retire into a jungle to feed on the pro 
ducts of one’s own morbid imagination; Lie struggle 
caused by the petty annoyances of everyday life is the best 
school to exercise the will power for those that have not 
yet gained the mastery over Self. “To renounce the 
vanities of the world ” does not mean to look with con¬ 
tempt upon the progress of the world, to remain ignorant 
of mathematics and logic, to take no interest in the welfare 
of humanity, to avoid the duties of life or neglect one’s 
family. Such a proceeding would accomplish the very re 
verse of what is intended; it would increase the love of 
self, it would concentrate the soul to a small focus instead 
of expanding it over the world. “ To renounce one’s 
self” means to conquer the sense of personality and to free 
one’s self of the love of things which that personality 
desires. It means “ to live in the world, but not cling to 
the world,” to substitute universal love for personal love, 
and to consider the interests of the whole of superior im¬ 
portance than personal claims. The renunciation of self 
is necessarily followed by spiritual growth. As we forget 
our personal self, we attach less importance to personali¬ 
ties, personal things, and personal feelings. We begin to 
look upon ourselves not as being permanent, unchanging 
and unchangeable entities, standing isolated among other 
isolated entities, and being separated from them by im¬ 
penetrable shells, but as parts of an infinite power, which 
embraces the universe, and whose powers are concentrated 
and brought to a focus in the bodies which we temporarily 
inhabit, into which bodies continually flow and from which 
are incessantly radiating the rays of an infinite sphere of 
light, whose circumference is endless and whose centre is 
everywhere. 

Upon the recognition and realization of this truth rests 
the only true religion, the Religion of the Universal Love 
of all Beings. As long as man takes only his own little 
self into consideration in his thoughts and acts, the sphere 
of his mind becomes necessarily narrow. All our popular 
religious sects are based upon selfish considerations. 
Each of our religious sectarians speculates to obtain some 
spiritual, if not material, benefit for himself. Each one 
wants to be saved by somebody; first he, and then per¬ 
haps the others ; but, above all, he himself. The true 
religion of universal Love knows of no “ self.” 


SACRIFICE. 


37 


Even the desire to go to heaven or enter the state of 
Nirvana, is, after all, but a selfish desire, and as long as 
man has any selfish desires whatever, his mind perceives 
only his own self. Only when he ceases to have a limited 
illusive “self” will his real self become unlimited and be 
omnipresent. He who desires unlimited knowledge must 
rise above limitation. 

Looked at from that height, the personality appears 
exceedingly small and insignificant, and of little import¬ 
ance. Man appears as the centralization of an idea, per¬ 
sons and peoples like living grains of sand on the shore of 
an infinite ocean. Fortune, fame, love, luxury, etc., 
assume in his conception the importance of soap-bubbles, 
and he has no hesitation in relinquishing them as the idle 
playthings of children. Neither can such a renunciation 
be called a sacrifice, for grown-up boys and girls do not 
“ sacrifice ” their popguns and dolls, they simply do not 
want them any longer. In proportion as their minds 
expand, do they reach out for something more useful, and 
as a man’s spirit expands, his surroundings, and even the 
planet on which he lives, appear to him small as a land¬ 
scape seen from a great distance, or from a high mountain, 
while at the same time his conception of the infinite grows 
larger and assumes a gigantic form. This expansion of 
our existence “ robs us of a country and a home ” * by 
making us citizens of the grand universe; it separates us 
from our mortal parents and friends to unite us with them 
forever as our immortal brothers and sisters ; it lifts us up 
from the narrow confines of the illusory form to the unlim¬ 
ited realm of the Ideal, and releasing man from the prison- 
house of insignificant clay, it leads him to the sublime 
splendor of Eternal and Universal Life. 

Every form of life, the human form not excepted, is 
nothing more than a focus in which the energies of the 
universal principle of life are concentrated, and the more 
they are concentrated and cling to that centre, the less are 
they able to manifest their activity, to grow and expand. 
Self-satisfied man, who employs his capacities only for his 
own selfish purpose, contracts them into himself, and as he 
contracts he becomes more and more insignificant, and as 
he loses sight of the whole, the whole loses sight of him. 


# Bulwer-Lytton : “ Zanoni.” 



EXPERIENCE. 


3* 

If, on the other hand, a person who is not in possession of 
sufficient energy attempts to send his forces into the region 
of the unknown, scattering them through space, without 
having strengthened them by the development of the 
intellect, they will wander like shadows through the realm 
of the infinite and become lost. Harmonious growth 
requires expansion along with a corresponding accumula¬ 
tion of energy. 

Some persons are possessed of great intellectual power, 
but of little spirituality ; some have spiritual power, but a 
weak intellect; those in which the spiritual energies are 
well supported by a strong intellect are the elect. To 
become practical, we must first learn to understand the 
thing we want to practise, by observation and receiving 
instruction. Understanding is a result of assimilation and 
growth, not a result of cramming. It is an awakening to a 
state of consciousness of the nature of the thing that comes 
within the range of our cognition. A person coming to a 
strange country in the evening will, when after a night’s 
rest he wakes in the morning, hardly realize where he is. 
He has, perhaps, been dreaming of his home and those 
that are left there, and only after he opens his eyes and 
awakens to a full sense of consciousness of his new and 
strange surroundings, will the old impressions fade away, 
and he will begin to realize where he is. In the same 
manner old errors must disappear before new truths can 
be realized. Man only begins to exist as a spiritual being 
when his spirit comes to life. 

To become perfect, physical health, intellectual growth, 
and spiritual perception and activity should go hand in 
hand. Intuition should be supported by an unselfish 
intellect, a pure mind by a healthy form. How to accom¬ 
plish this can neither be taught by a science which deals 
only with illusory effects, nor by a religious belief based 
upon illusions; but it is taught by the Wisdom Religion , 
the knowledge of self, whose foundation is truth, and 
whose practical application is the highest object of human 
existence. 

This Wisdom Religion has been, and is even to-day, the 
inheritance of the saints, prophets, and seers and of every 
one who is wise, no matter to what external system of reli¬ 
gion they may have given their adherence. It was known 
to the ancient Brahmins, Egyptians, and Jews, Gautama 


WISDOM, 


39 


Buddha advised his people to strive for it. It formed the 
basis of the Eleusinian and Bachic mysteries of the Greeks, 
and the true religion of Christ is resting upon it. It is the 
true religion of Humanity, that has nothing to do with con¬ 
fessions and forms. Now, as in times of old, its truths 
are misunderstood and misrepresented by men who pro¬ 
fess to be teachers of men. The Pharisees and Sadducees 
of the New Testament were the prototypes of modern 
churchmen and scientists existing to-day. Now, as then, 
the truth is daily crucified between superstition and selfish¬ 
ness and laid in the tomb of ignorance, from whence it will 
rise again. Now, as then, the spirit has fled from the form, 
being driven away by those that worship the form and 
hate the spirit. Wisdom will for ever remain a secret 
science to the idolators adoring the form, even if it were 
proclaimed from the housetops and preached at a market¬ 
place. The dealer in pounds and pennies, absorbed by 
his material interests, may be surrounded by the greatest 
beauties of nature and not comprehend them, the intel¬ 
lectual reasoner will ask for a sign and not see the signs by 
which he is continually surrounded. The tomb from which 
the Saviour will arise is the heart of men and women ; if 
the good in them awakens to self-consciousness, then will 
it appear to them as a sun, shedding its light upon a better 
and happier generation. 

The existence of the magic power of good will proba¬ 
bly be denied by few ; but if the existence of good, or 
White Magic, is admitted, that of evil, or Black Magic , is 
not any more improbable. 

It is not man who exercises good or evil magic powers, 
but it is the God in him who works good or evil through 
the organism of man. God is good or evil according to 
the conditions under which he acts; for if God did not 
include evil as well as good, he would not be universal. 
God performs good or evil deeds according to the mode 
in which he must act; in the same way as the sun is good 
in spring-time when he melts the snow and assists the 
grass and flowers to crawl out of the dark earth, and evil, 
if he parches the skin of the wanderer in tropical Africa 
and kills persons by sun-stroke. God causes the healthy 
growth of a limb and the unhealthy growth of a cancer by 
the magic power of his unconscious will, which acts accord¬ 
ing to law and not according to whims. Only when the 
Divinity in Man has awakened to consciousness and know- 


40 


BLACK MAGIC. 


ledge, will man be able to control his own magic (spiritual) 
power and employ it for Good or for Evil. 

A person having created (or called into consciousness) 
in himself an impersonal power may employ it for good or 
for evil, but if he employs it for his own personal gain, he 
loses that power, because in such a case the sense of his 
personality becomes more permanent and his personal 
Self has no power. Every day we may read of persons 
who have used high intellectual powers for vile purposes. 
We see persons making use of the vanity, greediness, self¬ 
ishness, or ambition of others to render them subservient 
to their own purpose. We see them commit murder and 
instigate wars for the benefit of their own purposes or to 
attain some object of their ambition. But such events 
belong more or less to the struggle for existence. They 
do not necessarily belong to the sphere of black magic, 
because they are usually not caused by a love for evil, but 
by a desire of a personal benefit of some kind. The real 
black magicians are those that are doing evil for the sake 
of doing evil, who injure others without expecting or 
receiving any benefit for themselves. To that class belong 
the backbiter and the slanderer, the traducer and seducer, 
those who create enmity in the bosom of families, who 
oppose progress and encourage ignorance, and they have 
been rightly called the Powers of Darkness , while those 
who do good for the sole purpose of doing good are the 
Children of Light. 

The struggle between Light and Darkness is as old as 
the world; there can be no light become manifest without 
darkness, and no evil without good. Good and evil are 
the light and shadow of the one eternal principle of life, 
and each is necessary if the other is to become manifest. 
Absolute good must exist, but we cannot know it without 
knowing the presence of evil. Absolute evil cannot exist, 
because it is held together by a spark of good. A soul in 
which there were no good whatever would rage against 
itself, the forces constituting such a soul would combat 
each other and rend it to pieces. Man’s Redeemer is his 
power for good. This power attracts him to that which 
is good, and at the end, when the supreme source of all 
power, from which life emanated in the beginning, with¬ 
draws that activity into itself, the powers of darkness will 
suffer, but the Children of Light will be united with the 
source of all Good. 


CHAPTER I. 


THE IDEAL. 

“ God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in 
spirit and in truth.”—John iv. 24. 

The highest desire any reasonable man can cherish, and 
the highest right he may possibly claim, is to become per¬ 
fect. To know everything, to love all and be known and 
beloved by all, to possess and command everything that 
exists, such is a condition of being that, to a certain 
extent, may be felt intuitively, but whose possibility can¬ 
not be grasped by the intellect of mortal man. A foretaste 
of such a blissful condition may be experienced by a per¬ 
son who—even for a short period of time—is perfectly 
happy. He who is not oppressed by sorrow, not excited 
by selfish desires, and who is conscious of his own strength 
and liberty, feels as if he were the master of worlds and 
the king of creation; and, in fact, during such moments 
he is their ruler, as far as he himself is concerned, although 
his subjects may not seem to be aware of his existence. 

But when he awakes from his dream and looks through 
the windows of his senses into the exterior world, and 
begins to reason about his surroundings, his vision fades 
away ; he beholds himself a child of the Earth, a mortal 
form, bound with many chains to a speck of dust in the 
Universe, on a ball of matter called a planet that floats in 
the infinity of space. The ideal world, that perhaps 
a moment before appeared to him as a glorious reality, 
may now seem to him the baseless fabric of a dream, in 
which there is nothing real, and physical existence, with 
all its imperfections, is now to him the only unquestion¬ 
able reality, and its most perfect illusions the only things 
worthy of his attention. He sees himself surrounded by 


42 


THE TRUE IDEAL. 


material forms, and he seeks to discover among these forms 
that which corresponds to his highest ideal. 

The highest desire of any mortal is to attain that which 
exists in himself as his highest ideal. A person without 
an ideal is unthinkable. To be conscious is to realize the 
existence of some ideal, to relinquish the ideal world would 
be death. A person without ,any desire would be useless 
in the economy of nature, a person having all his desires 
satisfied needs to live no longer, for life can be of no further 
use to him. Each one is bound to his own ideal; he 
whose ideal is mortal must die when his ideal dies, he 
whose ideal is immortal must become immortal himself to 
attain it. 

Each man’s true ideal should be his own higher spiritual 
self. His Christ, or God. Man’s semi-animal self is not 
the whole of man. Man may be regarded as an invisible 
power or ray extending in a line from the (spiritual) Sun to 
the Earth. Only the lower end of that line is visible, 
because it has evolved an organized material body; by 
means of which the invisible ray draws strength from the 
earth below. If all the life and thought-force evolved by 
the contact of the lower end of that line with matter are 
spent within the material plane, the higher spiritual self 
will gain nothing by it, and when death breaks the com¬ 
munication between the higher and lower self, the lower 
self will perish, and the higher one will remain what it was, 
before it evolved a mortal inhabitant of the material world. 

Man lives in two worlds, in his interior and in the 
exterior world. Each of these worlds exists under con¬ 
ditions peculiar to itself, and that world in which he lives 
is for the time being the most real to him. When he fully 
enters his interior world during deep sleep or in moments 
of perfect abstraction, the forms perceived in the exterior 
world fade away ; but when he awakes into the exterior 
world the forms seen in his interior state are forgotten, or 
leave only their uncertain shadows on the sky. To live 
simultaneously in both worlds is only possible to him 
who succeeds in harmoniously blending his internal and 
external worlds into one. 

The so-called Real seldom corresponds with the Ideal, 
and often it happens that man, after many unsuccessful 
attempts to realize his ideals in the exterior world, returns 
to his interior world with disappointment, and resolves to 


HAPPINESS. 


43 


give up his search ; but if he succeeds in the realization of 
his ideal, then arises for him a moment of happiness, 
during which time, as we know it, exists for him no more, 
the exterior world is then blended with his interior world, 
his consciousness is absorbed in the enjoyment of both, 
and yet he remains a man. 

Artists and poets may be familiar with such states. An 
inventor who sees his invention accepted, a soldier coming 
victorious out of the struggle for victory, a lover united 
with the object of his desire, forgets his own personality 
and is lost in the contemplation of his ideal. The extatic 
worshipper, seeing the Redeemer before him, floats in an 
ocean of rapture, and his consciousness is centred in the 
ideal that he himself has created out of his own mind, but 
which is as real to him as if it were a living form of flesh. 
Shakespeare’s Juliet finds her mortal ideal realized in 
Romeo’s youthful form. United with him, she forgets the 
rush of time, night disappears, and she is not conscious of 
it j the lark heralds the dawn, and she mistakes its song for 
the singing of the nightingale. Happiness measures no 
time and knows no danger. But Juliet’s ideal is mortal 
and dies, and having lost her ideal Juliet must die, and the 
immortal ideals of both become again united as they enter 
the immortal realm through the door of physical death. 

But as the sun rose too early for Juliet, so in all engage¬ 
ments of evanescent ideals that have been realized in the 
external world, happiness vanishes soon. An ideal that 
has been realized ceases to be an ideal; the ethereal forms 
of the interior world, if grasped by the rude hand of mor¬ 
tals and embodied in matter, must die. To grasp an 
immortal ideal, man’s mortal nature must die before he can 
grasp it. 

Low ideals may be killed, but their death calls similar 
ones into existence. From the blood of a vampire that has 
been slain a swarm of vampires arises. A selfish desire 
fulfilled makes room for similar desires, a gratified passion 
is chased away by other similar passions, a sensual craving 
that has been stilled gives rise to new cravings. Earthly 
happiness is short-lived and often dies in disgust; the love 
of the immortal alone is immortal. Material acquisitions 
perish, because forms are evanescent and die. Intellectual 
accomplishments vanish, for the intellectual forces are 
subject to change. Desires and opinions change and 


44 


ILLUSIONS. 


memories fade away. He who clings to old memories, 
clings to that which is dead. A child becomes a man, a 
man an old man, an old man a child ; the playthings of 
childhood give way to intellectual playthings, but when the 
latter have served their purpose, they appear as useless as 
did the former, only spiritual realities are everlasting and 
true. In the ever-revolving kaleidoscope of nature the 
aspect of illusions continually changes its form. What is 
laughed at as a superstition by one century is often 
accepted as the basis of science for the next, and what 
appears as wisdom to-day may be looked upon as an 
absurdity in the great tormorrow. Nothing is permanent 
but the real ideal, the truth. 

But where can man find the truth? If he seeks deep 
enough in himself he will find it revealed, each man may 
know his own heart. He may send a ray of his intelli¬ 
gence into the depths of his soul and search its bottom, 
he may find it to be as infinitely deep as the sky above his 
head. He may find corals and pearls, or watch the mon¬ 
sters of the deep. If his thought is steady and unwavering, 
he may enter the innermost sanctuary of his own temple 
and see the goddess unveiled. Not everyone can penetrate 
into such depths, because the thought is easily led astray; 
but the strong and persistent searcher will penetrate veil 
%fter veil, until at the innermost centre he discovers the 
germ of truth, which, awakened to consciousness, will grow 
into a sun that illuminates the whole of the interior world, 
wherein everything is contained. 

Such an interior meditation and concentration of thought 
upon the germ of divinity, which rests in the innermost 
centre of the soul, is the only true prayer. The adulation 
of an external form, whether living or dead, whether ex¬ 
isting objectively or merely subjectively in the imagina¬ 
tion, is useless, and serves only to deceive ourselves. It 
is very easy to attend to external forms of external “so- 
called worship,” but the true worship of the living God 
within requires a great effort of will and a power of will, 
which few people are able to exercise, but which can be 
acquired by practice. It consists in continually guarding 
of the door of the sacred lodge, so that no illegitimate 
thoughts may enter the mind to disturb the holy assembly 
whose deliberations are presided over by the spirit of 
wisdom. 


MED IT A TION. 


45 


How shall we know tne truth ? Truth, having awakened 
to consciousness, knows that it is; it is the god-principle 
in man, which is infallible and cannot be misled by 
illusions. If the surface of the soul is not lashed by the 
storms of passions, if no selfish desires exist to disturb its 
tranquillity, if its waters are not darkened by reflections of 
the past, we will see the image of eternal truth mirrored in 
the deep. To know the truth in its fulness is to become 
alive and immortal, to lose the power of recognizing the 
truth is to perish in death. The voice of truth in a person 
that has not yet awakened to spiritual life, is the “ still 
small voice ” that may be felt in the heart, listened to by 
the imperfect, as a half-conscious dreamer may listen to 
the ringing of bells in the distance ; but in those that have 
become conscious of life, that have passed through the 
first resurrection of the spirit in their own heart, and re¬ 
ceived the baptism of the first initiation administered by 
themselves, the voice of the new-born ego has no uncertain 
sound, but becomes the powerful Word of the Master-. 
The awakened principle of truth is self-conscious and self 
sufficient, it is the great spiritual sun that knows that it 
exists. It stands higher than the intellect and higher than 
science, it does not need to be corroborated by “ recog' 
nized authorities,'" it cares not for the opinion of others, 
and its decisions suffer no appeal. It knows neither doubt 
nor fear, but reposes in the tranquillity of its own supreme 
majesty. It can neither be altered nor changed, it always 
was and ever remains the same, whether mortal man may 
perceive it or not. It may be compared to the light of the 
earthly sun, that cannot be excluded from the world, but 
from which man may exclude himself. We may blind our¬ 
selves to the perception of the truth, but the truth itself is 
not thereby changed. It illuminates the minds of those 
who have awakened to immortal life. A small room re¬ 
quires a little flame, a large room a great light for its 
illumination, but in either room the light shines equally 
clear in each ; in the same manner the light of truth shines 
into the hearts of the illuminated with equal clearness, but 
with a power differing according to their individual 
capacity. 

It will always be perfectly useless to attempt to describe 
self-knowledge to another man. Only that which exists 
relatively to ourselves has a real existence for us 3 that of 


4 6 


THE TRUE LIGHT\ 


which we know nothing does not exist for us. No proof 
of the existence of light can be furnished to the blind, no 
proof of transcendental knowledge can be given to those 
whose capacity to know does not transcend the realm of 
external phenomena. 

There is nothing higher than truth, and the acquisition 
of truth is therefore man’s highest ideal. The highest 
ideal in the Universe must be a universal ideal. The 
constitution of all men is built according to one universal 
law, and the highest ideal must be the same ideal to all and 
attainable to all, and in its attainment all individuals 
become reunited into one. As long as a man does not re¬ 
cognize the highest ideal in the Universe, the highest one 
which he is able to recognize will be the highest to him ; 
but as long as there still exists a higher one than the one 
he perceives, the higher will unconsciously attract him, 
unless he persistingly repulses its attraction. Only the 
attainment of the highest ideal in the Universe can give 
permanent happiness, for having attained the highest there 
is nothing left that could be possibly desired. As long as 
there is still a higher ideal for man, he will have aspira¬ 
tions to reach it, but having reached the highest its 
attraction ceases, he becomes one with it and can desire 
nothing more. There must be a state of perfection which 
all may reach, and beyond which none can advance, until 
the Universe as a whole advances beyond it. All men 
have the same right to reach the highest, but not all have 
the same power developed, some may reach it soon, others 
may lag on the road, and perhaps the majority may fall 
and have to begin again at the foot of the ladder. Each 
ripe acorn that falls from an oak has the inherent capacity 
to develop into an oak ; but not each finds the same con¬ 
ditions for development. Some may grow, a few may 
develop into trees, but the majority will enter into decom¬ 
position to furnish new material out of which new forms 
may be developed. 

The highest truth in its fulness is not known to a man 
in the mortal form. Those that have attained to a state of 
perfect consciousness of absolute truth require no form to 
hold it, they belong to a formless tribe ; they could not be 
one with an universal principle if they were tied by the 
chains of personality ; a mind expanded, so that the prison- 
house of flesh can hold it no more, will require that prison- 


ILLUMINATION . 


47 


house no longer. Form is only required to shelter the 
spirit in the infancy of his development, as long as he has 
not attained full power. Having attained the knowledge 
of evil and the power to control it, and having by the rea¬ 
lization of the truth “ eaten from the tree of life and 
attained immortality,” * he can protect himself by his own 
power, and requires his clothes of flesh no longer. 

Imperfectly developed man, unless he has become very 
much degraded, feels intuitively that which is true. The 
scientist who reasons from the plane of sensual perceptions 
is farthest from a recognition of the truth, because he mis¬ 
takes the illusions produced by his senses for the reality, 
and repulses the revelations of his own intuition. The 
philosopher, unable to see the truth, attempts to grasp it 
with his intellect, and may approach it to a certain extent; 
but he, in whom the truth has attained the state of self- 
consciousness, knows the truth by direct perception, he is 
one with it, and cannot err. Such a state is incompre¬ 
hensible to the majority of men, to scientists and philoso¬ 
phers as well as to the ignorant, and yet men have existed, 
and exist to-day, who have attained that state. They are 
the true Theosophists , but not every one is a Theosophist 
who goes by that name, nor is everyone a Christ who is 
called a Christian. But a true Theosophist and a true 
Christian or Mahatma are one and the same, because both 
are human forms in which the universal spiritual soul has 
attained a state of self-consciousness. 

The terms “ Christian ” or “ Theosophist,” like so many 
other terms of a similar kind, have almost entirely lost 
their true meaning. A “ Christian ” now-a-days means a 
person whose name is inscribed in the register of some so- 
called Christian Church, and performs the ceremonies 
prescribed by that social organization. 

But a real Christian is something entirely different from 
a merely external one. The first Christians were a secret 
organization, a school of Occultists, who adopted certain 
symbols and signs, in which to represent the truths they 
knew, and thus to communicate them to each other, while 
hiding them from the eyes of the ignorant. 

A real Theosophist is not a dreamer, but a most practical 
person. By purity of life he receives the power to per¬ 
ceive higher truths than average man is able to see. 


* Bible : Genesis iii. 22. 



4fc 


PROPHETS. 


As the truth is only one, men in all countries, in whom 
the truth has become self-conscious, have the same percep¬ 
tion. This explains why the revelations of all prophets 
are identical with each other, provided they have attained 
the same power. The truths revealed by a Jackob 
Boehme, or Paracelsus in Germany, are essentially the 
same as those revealed by the Thibetan Mahatmas, they 
only differ in extent and in mode of expression. An 
ecstatic Christian saint in England or France would tell 
the same tale as an ecstatic Brahmin in India or an 
ecstatic red Indian in America; because all three, being 
in the same state, would exactly see the same thing. 
The truth is there, visible to all who are able to per¬ 
ceive it, but each will describe what he sees according 
to his mode of thinking and in his own fashion. If— 
as the ignorant believe—all the visions of saints and 
lamas, sanyassi, and dervishes, were only the result of 
hallucinations and fancies, not two of them, having never 
heard of each other, would have the same vision. A tree 
will be a tree to all who are able to see it, and if their 
sight is clear no preconceived opinions will change it into 
something else; a truth will be seen as a truth by all who 
are able to see it, and no preconceived opinions will alter 
it or change it into a lie. To know the whole truth is to 
know everything that exists ; to love the truth above all is 
to become united with the consciousness of all; to be able 
to express the truth in its fulness is to possess universal 
power ; but to be one with immortal truth is to be for 
ever immortal. 

The perception of the truth rests in the equilibrium 
of the intellect and the emotions. As long as the mind 
has not awakened to a state of direct recognition of the 
truth, it will only see the shadow of its presence and hear 
the indistinct whispering of its voice. The sound of that 
voice may be drowned in the turmoil of the intellectual 
workshop, its light may be obscured by the storms of the 
emotions. To understand that voice and to behold that 
light distinctly and without any foreign admixture, heart 
and head should act harmoniously together. To perceive 
the truth, purity of heart and strength of mind should 
go hand in hand, and it is therefore taught that men must 
become like children before they can enter the sphere of 
truth. Head and heart, if supported by reason, are as One> 


SINGLENESS AND COMPLEXEDNESS. 


49 


but if they act against each other they form the absurd Two 
that produces illusions. The emotional maniac is only 
guided by his heart, the intellectual fool only listens to the 
dictates of his head, he lives—so to say—in his head and 
neglects the heart. But neither the revelry of the emotions 
nor intellectual fanaticism discloses the truth; only in the 
“ stillness that follows the storm,” * when the harmony of 
both is restored, will the truth be discovered. A man who 
only follows the dictates of his emotions, resembles one 
who in ascending a mountain peak becomes dizzy, and 
losing nis power to control himself, falls over a precipice; 
a man who is only guided by his sensual perceptions influ¬ 
encing his intellect is easily lost in the whirlpool of multi¬ 
farious illusions. He is like a person on an island in the 
ocean examining a drop of water taken from the ocean, 
and being blind to the existence of the ocean from which 
that drop has been taken. But if heart and head are 
attuned to the divine harmonies of the invisible realm of 
nature, then will the truth reveal itself to man, and in him 
will the highest ideal see its own image reflected. 

We sometimes hear some people boast that they are 
controlled by their intellect; but no one boasts that he is 
controlled by his emotions. The former are as much in 
error as the latter; for a free man is not controlled by 
either of the two ; he is his own master. By the power of 
his will and reason he controls the intellectual workings of 
his brain no less than the emotions of his heart, and only 
such a person is wise. Heart and brain are not ourselves. 
They are instruments which have been lent to us by nature. 
They should not govern us ; but we should govern them, 
and use them according to the dictates of the universal 
law, whose words we can only hear, when we are free from 
the bonds of the animal self. 

Material man, entombed in his chrysalis of clay, can 
only feel, but not see, the rays that radiate from the sphere 
of infinite truth; but if he bids his emotions be still! and 
commands his intellect be not deluded ! he may stretch his 
feelers into the realm of the spirit and perceive the light of 
truth. His heart should be used as a touchstone to examine 
the conclusions arrived at by the brain, and the brain 
should be employed like scales to weigh the decisions of the 


* “ Light on the Path,” by M. C. 



SPIRITUAL PERCEPTION. 


5° 

heart; but when his self-knowledge has been awakened, 
there will be no more difference of opinion between the 
head and the heart, the perceptions of the one will be in 
harmony with the aspirations of the latter, the one will see 
and the other will feel the truth. Then will the lower 
ideals vanish before the light of truth, for truth is a jealous 
goddess and suffers no other gods beside her. 

Man is usually guided only by his intellect, woman is 
often guided only by her emotions. To reason from 
external appearances has become a necessity to men in 
consequence of their material organization, which like 
a shell surrounds the soul of men or women, in which 
alone rests the power of sensation and perception; but 
if the innermost man, the true spirit, sleeping in every 
mortal, awakens to life, he emits a light that penetrates 
through the veil of matter and illuminates the soul. If 
the germ of divinity, hidden in the centre of the soul, is 
permitted to awaken, it emits a spiritual light, which 
reaches from man to the stars and to the utmost limits of 
space, and by the help of that divine light he may perceive 
and penetrate into the deepest mysteries of the Universe. 
Those who are able to know the truth by direct perception 
do not need to be informed of it by the reading of books, 
the whole of the visible and invisible realm lies open before 
them, like a book in whose pages they may read the whole 
history of the world. They know all the forms of life, 
because they are one with the source of life from which all 
forms were born, they need not study letters, because the 
Word itself is living in them. They may be the instru¬ 
ments through whom eternal wisdom reveals itself to those 
who are entombed in matter; but in that case it is not the 
teacher revealing the truth, but the truth itself revealing 
itself through him. These are the only Illuminates and 
Theosophists that have any real existence ; not those who 
merely imagine to be what they not really are. 

How pitiful must appear to the enlightened the war of 
opinions raging among those whom humanity believes to 
be the lights of knowledge and wisdom; how insignifi¬ 
cantly small appear those lights before the sun of truth. 
What appears as a light to the ignorant, appears to the 
illuminated seer as a source of darkness and smoke, and the 
wisdom of the world becomes foolishness * before the eyes 


I Cor. iii. 19. 



SUPERSTITIONS. 


5* 


of the truth. The oyster in its shell may believe to be at 
the pinnacle of perfection, and that there is no higher 
existence than that which it enjoys in the ocean-bed ; the 
scientist, proud of the discoveries of his department of 
science, is frequently found to be swelled with vanity, 
knowing little how little he knows. Many of the repre¬ 
sentatives of modern science forget that the greatest inven¬ 
tions have been made—not by the professed guardians of 
science, but by men upon whom they looked with con¬ 
tempt, and that many useful inventions were introduced, 
not with the assistance, but in spite of the opposition of 
the learned. It may be disagreeable to call up unpleasant 
memories, but we cannot close our eyes to the fact that 
the inventors of railroads, steamships, and telegraphs have 
been ridiculed by professors of science, that men of science 
have laughed at the belief in the rotundity of the earth, 
that some of the legitimate keepers of the truth have often 
betrayed their trust, and that especially the followers of 
the medical profession, as a class, have often been 
prominent on account of their misunderstanding of the 
laws of nature, and of their opposition to truth, whenever 
it conflicted with their preconceived opinions. 

Many useful discoveries have been made through the 
power of intuition ; assisted by a strong intellect, some 
seem to have been made by the aid of that intuition which 
comes from the devil, and their results are still a curse to 
mankind. For centuries the learned professions have 
been thriving on human suffering, and many of their 
followers, mistaking the low for the high, have dethroned 
the god of humanity and worshipped the fetish of Self in 
its place. The fear of an illusory devil external to man 
has served to swell the money-bags of Brahmins and 
priests, while the real internal devils, residing in the 
animal nature of man, were allowed to grow. For cen¬ 
turies many of the appointed servants of the Supreme have 
only served the golden calf, residing in their animal nature, 
feeding their followers with false hopes of immortality, and 
speculating on the selfish propensities of men to obtain 
material profits for their own selves. Those to whom 
humanity looks for protection against bodily ills, and who 
therefore—more than anybody else—should understand 
the real constitution of man, usually experiment with the 


5* 


DELUSIONS, 


physical form to seek the cause of disease, being ignorant 
of the fact that the form is the expression of life, the product 
of the soul, and that external effects cannot be effectually 
changed without changing the internal causes. Many of 
them refusing to believe in Soul, seek the cause of diseases, 
in its external expression, where it does not exist. Diseases 
are the necessary results of disobedience to the laws of 
nature, they are the consequences of “ sins ” that cannot 
be forgiven, but must be atoned for by acting again in 
accordance with natural laws. In vain will the ignorant 
ask the guardians of health for their assistance to cheat the 
law of nature out of its dues. Physicians may restore 
health by restoring the supremacy of the law, but as long 
as they know only an infinitesimal part of the law they can 
only cure an infinitesimal part of the diseases afflicting 
mankind ; they can often only suppress the manifestation 
of one disease by calling another and more serious one into 
existence.* In vain will such investigators seek for the 
cause for epidemic diseases in places where such causes 
may be propagated, but where they are not created. The 
soul of the Earth in which such causes reside cannot be 
seen with microscopes, it can only be recognized by a man 
whose spiritual perceptions have been awakened by the 
awakening into consciousness of his interior self. 

A true conception of the nature of man will lead to the 
comprehension of the fact that man, being as a microcosm 
the true image, reflection and representative of the ma¬ 
crocosm of nature; Nature has the same organization as 
Man, although not the same external form. Having the 
same organs and functions, and being ruled by the same 
laws, the organism of Nature is liable to experience 
diseases, similar to those experienced by the organism of 
man. Nature has her dropsical swellings, her nervous 
tremblings, her paralytic affections by which civilized 
countries turn into deserts, her inflammatory affections, her 
rheumatic contractions, spells of heat and cold, eruptions 
and earthquakes. If our physicians knew the nature of 
man, they would also know the organization of Nature as 
a whole, and understand more about the origin of epidemic 
diseases, of which they now know merely the externa, 
effects. 


See C. L. Hunt. “ Vaccination.’ 



MEDICAL SCIENCE. 


53 


What does modern medical science know of the con¬ 
stitution of man, whose life and safety is made to depend 
on that knowledge ? It knows the form of the body, the 
arrangement of muscles, and bones, and organs, and it calls 
these constituent parts by names which it invented for the 
purpose of distinction. Having no supersensual percep¬ 
tions it does not know the soul of man, but believes that 
his body is the essential man. If its eyes were open it 
would see that this visible body is only the material kernel 
of the “ immaterial,” but nevertheless substantial real man, 
whose soul-essence radiates far into space, and whose 
spirit is without limits. They would know that in the life- 
principle, in whose existence they do not believe, resides 
sensation, perception, consciousness, and all the causes 
that produce the growth of the form. Laboring under 
their fatal mistake they attempt to cure that which is not 
sick, while the real patient is unknown to them. Under 
such circumstances it is not surprising that the most 
enlightened physicians of our time have expressed the 
opinion that our present system of medicine is rather a 
curse than a blessing to mankind, and that our drugs and 
medicines do vastly more harm than good, because they 
are continually misapplied. This is an assertion which has 
often been made by their own most prominent leaders. 

The ideal physician of the future is he who knows the 
true constitution of man, and who is not led by illusive 
external appearances, but has developed his interior 
powers of perception to enable him to examine into the 
hidden causes of all external effects. To him the acquisi¬ 
tions of material science are not the guides but only the 
assistants, his guide will be his knowledge and not his 
“ belief,” and his knowledge will endow him with faith , 
which is a power acting upon that part of man that cannot 
be reached by the administration of drugs. 

If our medical students were to apply a part of the time 
which they employ for the study of certain external sciences 
which are practically useless to them for the development 
of their interior perception, they would become able to see 
certain processes within the organism of man, which are 
at present to them a mere matter of speculation, and which 
are not discoverable by any physical means. 

But even the modern physician acts wiser than he knows. 

He may say that he does not believe in faith, and yet it 


54 


FAITH . 


is only faith that upholds him and by which he exists, 
because if men had no faith in him they would not employ 
him, and if his patients did not believe that he could 
benefit them they would not follow his directions. A 
physician without intuition, having no faith in himself, and 
in whom no one else has any faith, is perfectly useless as a 
physician, no matter how much he may have learned in 
schools. 

There is nothing whatever that can be accomplished 
without the power of Faith, and there is no faith possible 
without knowledge. We can only accomplish that of 
which we are confident that we can accomplish it, and we 
can only be truly confident if we know by experience that 
we have the power to do it. 

What does popular science know about Mind ? Accord¬ 
ing to the usual definition, Mind is “ the intellectual 
power in man,” and as by man she means a visible form, 
this definition makes of mind something confined within 
that visible form. But if this conception were true, there 
could be no transmission of thought to a distance. If no 
mind-substance did exist outside the visible form, there 
could be no transmission of thought from one such form to 
another. No sound can be heard in a space from which 
the air has been exhausted, and no thought can travel 
from one individual to another without a corresponding 
material existing between them to act as a conductor ; but 
the possibility of thought-transference is now an almost 
universally admitted fact; its truth has been perceived 
long ago by children who make practical use of it in some 
of their games. Moreover, any one who doubts its possi¬ 
bility has it in his power to convince himself by either 
impressing his thoughts silently upon others, or—if he is 
of a receptive nature—by letting others impress their 
thought upon him. It must, therefore, be obvious even to 
the superficial observer, that popular science in regard to 
this fundamental doctrine has not yet arrived at the truth. 
Her logical deductions cannot be true as long as the 
premises from which she reasons are false, and her opinions 
in regard to the powers possessed by man cannot be 
perfect as long as she does not know the essential nature 
of Man. 

How infinitely more grand and how much more reason¬ 
able is the conception of ancient science, according to 


MIND . 


5S 


whose doctrines everything that exists is an expression of 
the thoughts of the Universal Mind, pervading the infinity 
of space ! This conception makes Mind a power in the 
realm of infinity, acting through living and intelligent 
instruments, and of Man , an intellectual power, an expres¬ 
sion of the Universal Mind, able to receive, reflect, and 
modify the thoughts of the latter, like a diamond that 
becomes self-luminous through the influence of the Sun. 

There is no reason why we should believe that an 
intelligent mind can exist only in a form which is visible 
and tangible to the external senses of man. There may 
be, for all we know, untold millions of intelligent or semi- 
intelligent beings in the universe, whose forms are consti¬ 
tuted differently from ours, who live on another plane of 
existence than ours, and who are therefore invisible to our 
physical senses, but who nevertheless have a mind, and 
may be perceived by the superior power of perception of 
the awakened spirit. Nor is their existence a matter of 
mere speculation, for they may be perceived by those who 
have the power of interior perception whenever they enter 
the sphere of their mind. 

All we know of external objects is the images which they 
produce in the sphere of our mind. Astral or spiritual 
beings produce no reflection upon the retina, but their 
presence may be felt when they enter the mental sphere of 
the observer, and they may be perceived with the eye of 
the soul. 

The ideal scientist of the future having attained the 
power of spiritual perception, will recognize this truth. 
But when this time arrives scientific opinions will cease to 
be mere beliefs, and knowledge will take their place. 

The common utilitarianism of our age is the result of a 
general misconception of the true nature of man, and of 
that which is really useful and worthy of his attention. 

If we believe that the object of life is simply to render 
our material Self satisfied and to keep it in comfort, and 
that material comfort confers the highest state of possible 
happiness, we mistake the low for the high and an illusion 
for the truth. Our material mode of life is a consequence of 
the material constitution of our bodies. We are “ worms 
of earth ” because we cling with all our aspirations to earth. 
If we can enter upon a path of evolution, by which we 
become less material and more ethereal, a very different 


5« 


NECESSITIES . 


order of civilization would be established. Things which 
now appear indispensable and necessary would cease to be 
useful; if we could transfer our consciousness with the 
velocity of thought from one part of the globe to another, 
the present mode of communication and transportation 
would be no longer required. The deeper we sink into 
matter, the more material means for comfort will be 
needed; the essential and powerful god in man is not 
material—in the usual acceptation of this term—and 
independent of the restrictions laid upon matter. 

What are the real necessities of life ? The answer to 
this question depends entirely on what we imagine to be 
necessary. Railways, steamers, electric lights, &c., are 
now a necessity to us, and yet millions of people have 
lived long and happy knowing nothing about them. To 
one man a dozen of palaces may appear to be an indispen¬ 
sable necessity, to another a carriage, another a pipe, or a 
bottle of whisky. But all such necessities are only such as 
man himself has created. They make the state in which 
man now is agreeable to him, and tempt him to remain in 
that state and to desire for nothing higher. They may 
even hinder his development instead of advancing it. If 
we would rise into a higher state, in which we would no 
longer require such things, they would cease to be a 
necessity, and even become undesirable and useless; but 
it is the craving and the wasting of thought for the augmen¬ 
tation of the pleasures of the lower life which prevent man 
to enter the higher one. 

To raise the evanescent man to a state of perfection 
enjoyed by the permanent ideal man is the great object of 
life ; the Arcanum , that cannot be learned in books. It is 
the great secret, that may be understood by a child, but will 
for ever be incomprehensible to him who, living entirely in 
the realm of sensual perceptions, has no power to grasp it. 
The attainment of that which is the highest is the Magnum 
opus , the great work, of which the Alchemists said that 
thousands of years may be required to perform it, but that 
it may also be accomplished in a moment, even by a 
woman while engaged in spinning. They looked upon the 
human mind as being a great alembic, in which the con¬ 
tending forces of the emotions may be purified by the heat 
of holy aspirations and by a supreme love of truth. They 
gave instructions how the soul of mortal man may be subli- 


THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 


57 


<nated and purified from earthly attractions, and its 
immortal parts be made living and free. The purified 
elements were made to ascend to the supreme source of 
law, and descended again in showers of snowy whiteness , 
visible to all, because they rendered every act of life holy 
and pure. They taught how the base metals—meaning 
the animal energies in man—could be transformed into the 
pure gold of true spirituality, and how by attaining spiritual 
life—allegorically represented under the u Elixir of Life” 
—souls could have their youth and innocence restored and 
be rendered immortal. 

Their truths shared the fate of other truths ; they were 
misunderstood and rejected by the ignorant, who con¬ 
tinually clamor for truth and reject it when it is offered, 
because, being blind, they are unable to see it; their 
science is known only to those who are able to grasp 
it. Theology and Masonry have—each in its own manner 
—continued the teachings of the Alchemists, and fortunate 
is the Mason or the priest who understands that which he 
teaches. But of such true disciples there are only few. 
The systems in which the old truths have been embodied 
are still in existence, but the cold hands of Sensualism and 
Materialism have been laid upon the outward forms, and 
from the interior the spirit has fled. Doctors and priests 
see only the outward form, and few can see the hidden 
mystery that called these forms into existence. The key 
to the inner sanctuary has been lost by those that were 
entrusted with its keeping, and the true password has not 
been rediscovered by the followers of Hiram Abiff. The 
riddle of the Egyptian Sphinx still waits fora solution, and 
will be revealed to none unless he becomes strong enough 
to discover it himself. 

But the truth still lives. It resides on the top of a 
“ mountain ” called Faith into the eternal Law of Good. 
It shines deep into the interior world of man, and sends its 
divine influence down into the valleys, and wherever the 
doors and windows are open to receive it, there will it 
dispel the darkness, rendering men and women conscious 
of their own godlike attributes and guiding them on the 
road to perfection, until, when all their struggles have 
ceased and the law has been restored, they will find 
permanent happiness in the realization of the highest 
universal ideal. 


Y 


CHAPTER II. 

THE REAL AND THE UNREAL. 

“ Allah ! Bi’-smiMlah !—God is One.”— Koran. 

Everywhere in the broad expanse of the universe we see 
an almost infinite variety of forms, belonging to different 
kingdoms and species, and exhibiting an endless variety of 
appearances. The substance of which those forms are 
composed may, for aught we know, consist essentially of 
the same primordial material, forming the basis of their 
constitution, although the qualities of the various bodies 
may differ from each other, and it is far more reasonable to 
suppose that this one primordial eternal essence exists and 
appears in the course of evolution in various forms, than to 
believe that a number of different original substances have 
come into existence either by being created out of nothing 
or otherwise. What this primordial essence—this imma¬ 
terial substance*—may be we do not know, we only know 
of its manifestation in forms which we call things. What¬ 
ever may find expression in one form or another may be 
called a thing, and a thing may change its substance and 
yet the form remain the same, or its form may change and 
the substance remain. Water may be frozen into solid ice, 
or be transformed by heat into invisible vapor; and 
vapor may be chemically decomposed into hydrogen and 
oxygen; yet, if the necessary conditions are given, the 
energies which previously formed water will form water 
again; the forms and attributes change, but the elements 
remain the same and may combine again in certain stipu • 
lated proportions, regulated by the law of attraction. 


* The A'kasa of the Brahmins or the Master of Paracelsus, the 
Universal Proteus . 


/ 



UTILITY OF PRINCIPLE. 


59 


As this hypothetical primordial substance or principle 
has no attributes which we can perceive with our senses, 
we cannot see it or feel it, and we therefore do not know 
the real substance of a thing; we only distinguish the 
peculiarities of the attributes of its form, and for the pur¬ 
pose of distinction and classification we give it a name. 
VVe may gradually deprive a thing of some of its attributes 
or substance and change its form, and yet it remains that 
thing as long as its character remains, and even after we 
destroy its form and dissolve its substance the character of 
the thing still remains as an idea in the subjective world, 
where we cannot destroy it, and we may clothe the old 
idea with new attributes and produce it under a new form 
on the objective plane. A thing exists as long as its char¬ 
acter exists, only when it changes its character it ceases to 
be. A material thing is only the symbol or the represen¬ 
tation of an idea; we may give it a name, but the thing 
itself remains forever hidden behind the veil. If we could 
on the physical plane separate a single substance from its 
attributes, and endow it with others at will, then one body 
could be transformed into another, as, for instance, base 
metals be transformed into gold; but unless we change the 
character of a thing, a mere change of its form will only 
affect its external appearance. 

By way of illustration, let us look at a stick. It is made 
of wood, but this is not essential; it might be made of 
something else and still be a stick. We do not perceive 
the stick itself, we only see its attributes, its extension and 
color and density ; we feel its weight, and we hear its sound 
if we strike it. Each of these attributes or all of them 
may be changed, and it may remain a stick for all that, as 
long as its character is not lost, because that which essen¬ 
tially constitutes it a stick is its character or an idea which 
has not necessarily a definite form. Let us endow that 
formless idea with new attributes that will change its char¬ 
acter, and we shall have transformed our ideal stick into 
anything we choose to make of it. 

We cannot change copper into gold on the physical 
plane, we cannot change a man into a physical child, but 
we may daily transform our desires, our aspirations and 
tastes by the omnipotent power of the will. In doing this 
we change our character, and make of man—even on the 
physical plane—a different being. 


6o 


CHARACTER. 


Nobody ever saw a real man, we only perceive the 
qualities which he possesses. Man cannot see himself. 
He speaks of his body, his soul, his spirit; it is only the 
combination of the three which constitutes what we con¬ 
sider a man, the Ego in which his character rests is some¬ 
thing for which we have no conception. As an idea and 
yet an individual unit he enters the world of matter, evo- 
lutes a new personality, obtains new experience and 
knowledge, passes through the pleasures and vicissitudes 
of life and through the valley of death, and enters again 
into that realm where in the course of ages his form will 
cease to exist, to appear again in a form upon the scene 
when the hour for his reappearance strikes. His form and 
personality change, his real Ego remains the same and yet 
not the same, because during life it acquires new attributes 
and changes its characteristics.* 

We see that a plant ceases to grow when its roots are 
torn from the soil, and when they are replaced into the 
soil the growth may continue. Likewise the human spirit, 
man’s higher self, takes root in the physical organism of 
man, and develops a soul through the latter, but when 
death tears out the roots, the soul rests and ceases to 
grow, until it finds again a physical organism to acquire 
new conditions for continued growth, and to improve its 
own real self. 

What can this real ego be, which lives through death and 
changes during life, unless it is The Will itself, obtaining 
relative consciousness by coming in contact with matter ? 
Is any man certain of his own existence ? All the proof 
we have of our existence is in our consciousness, in the 
feeling of the I am, in which is the realization of our exist- 


* A true appreciation of the essential nature of man will show that 
the repeated reincarnation of the human monad in successive personali¬ 
ties is a scientific necessity. How could it be possible for a man to 
develop into a state of perfection, if the time of his spiritual growth 
were restricted to the period of one short existence upon this globe ? 
If he could go on and develop without having a physical body then 
why should it have been necessary for him to take a physical body at 
all ? It is unreasonable to suppose that the spiritual germ of a man 
begins its existence at the time of the birth of the physical body, or that 
the physical parents of the child could be the generators of the spiritual 
monad. If the spiritual monad existed before the body was born, and 
could develop without it, what would be the use of its entering any body 
at all? 



CHANGE OF ATTRIBUTES. 


6 1 


ence. Every other state of consciousness is subject to 
change. The consciousness of one moment differs from 
that of another, according to the changes which take place 
in the conditions which surround us, and according to the 
variety of our impressions. We are craving for change 
and death ; to remain always the same would be torture. 
Old impressions die and are replaced with new ones, and 
we rejoice to see the old ones die, so that the new ones 
may step into their places. We do not make our impres¬ 
sions ourselves, but we receive them from the outside 
world. If it were possible that two or more persons could 
be born and educated under exactly the same conditions, 
having the same character and receiving always the same 
impressions, they would always have the same thoughts, 
the same feelings and desires, their consciousness would be 
identical, and they might be considered as forming collec¬ 
tively only one person. A person, having forgotten all 
the mental impressions he ever received, and receiving no 
new ones, might exist for ages, living in eternal imbecility, 
with no consciousness whatever except the consciousness 
of the I Am, and that consciousness could not cease tc 
exist as long as there is in him that Will which enables him 
to be* 


* This is the only possible condition in which a person, who has during 
his earthly life acquired no spiritual possessions, can possibly exist after 
death. A person whose whole attention is given to sensual pleasures, 
or to merely intellectual pursuits on the material plane, carries nothing 
with him into the subjective existence after the death of the body which 
can exist permanently. Nor could it be otherwise; for it is not he who 
dies ; it is the false egos dying in him. A man who does not know his 
own true self cannot die, because he has not yet come to life; it is only 
nature, living and dying in him. 

His sensations leave him at death, and the images caused in his mind 
by the recollection of the superficial knowledge which he has acquired 
during life will gradually fade away ; the intellectual forces, which have 
been set into motion by his scientific pursuits, will be exhausted, and 
after that time the spirit of such a person, even if he has been during life 
the greatest scientist, speculator, and logician, will be nothing but an 
imbecile being, having merely the feeling that he exists, living in dark¬ 
ness, and being drawn irresistibly towards reincarnation ; seeking to 
reimbody itself again under any circumstances whatever, to escape from 
nothingness into existence. 

But he who acquires spiritual self-consciousness will be self-luminous 
and live in the eternal light. He brings a light with him into the dark¬ 
ness. and that light will not be distinguished, for it is eternal { while 
the light of this world is like darkness to him. 



62 


RELATIVE LIFE, 


Under whatever form life may exist, it is only relative. 
A stone, a plant, an animal, a man or God, each has an 
existence of its own, and each one exists only for the 
others, as long as the others are conscious of his existence. 
Man looks upon the existences below him as incomplete, 
and the incomplete beings below him know little about 
him. Man knows little about any superior beings, and yet 
there may be such, looking upon him with pity as they 
would look upon an inferior animal that has not yet awak¬ 
ened to a realization of its real existence. 

Those who are supposed to know, inform us that there 
is no being in the universe superior to the spiritual regener¬ 
ated man; but that there are innumerable invisible beings 
who are either far superior or inferior to mortal man as 
we know him. In other words, the highest beings in the 
universe are such as have once been men; but the men 
and women of our present civilization may have to progress 
through millions of ages before they attain that state of 
perfection which such beings possess. 

We are accustomed to look upon that which we perceive 
with our senses as real, and upon everything else as unreal, 
and yet our daily experience teaches us that our senses 
cannot be trusted if we wish to distinguish between the 
true and the false. We see the sun rise in the East, see 
him travel along the sky during the day and dis¬ 
appear again in the West; but every child now-a-days 
knows that this apparent movement is only an illusion, 
caused by the turning of the earth. At night we see the 
“ fixed ” stars above our heads, they look insignificant 
compared with the wide expanse of the earth and the ocean, 
and yet we believe that they are blazing suns, in compari¬ 
son with which our mother Earth is only a speck of dust. 
Nothing seems to us more quiet and tranquil than the 
solid rocks under our feet, and yet the earth whereon we 
live whirls with tremendous velocity through space; the 
mountains seem to be everlasting, but continents sink 
beneath the waters of the ocean and rise again above its 
surface. Below our feet moves, with ebbs and tides, the 
swelling bosom of our apparently solid mother the earth, 
above our head seems to be nothing tangible, and yet we 
live on the very bottom of the airy ocean above us, and do 
not know the things that may perhaps live in its currents 
or upon its surface. A stream of light seems to descend 


RELATIVE CONSCIOUSNESS . 


63 


from the sun to our planet, and yet darkness is said to 
exist between the atmosphere of the Earth and the sun, 
where no meteoric matter exists to cause a reflection ; 
while again we are surrounded by an ocean of light of a 
higher order, which appears to us to be darkness, because 
the nerves of our bodies have not yet been sufficiently 
developed to react under the influence of the Astral Light. 
The image reflected in the mirror seems a reality to the 
unreasoning mind; the voice of an echo may be mistaken 
for the voice of a man ; the elemental forces of nature may 
be loaded with the products of our own thoughts, and we 
may listen to their echo, believing it to be the voices of 
spirits of the departed. We often dream when awake, and 
while believing to be awake we may be asleep. 

It is not scientific to say “ we are asleep; ” as long as 
we do not know who “ we” are. We can only truly say 
that such and such functions of a physical or psychical 
organism, which we call our own, are asleep or inactive 
while others are active and awake. We may be fully 
awake relatively to one thing and asleep relatively to 
another. A somnambule's body may be in a state resem¬ 
bling death, while his higher consciousness is fully alive, 
and has even far superior powers of perception than it 
could employ if all the activity of his life-principle were 
engaged in performing the functions of his lower organism. 

Solid matter looked at with the physical eye appears as 
a dense mass of unchangeable something, but examined 
with the eye of the intellect it appears as an aggregation 
of centers of energy easily penetrable to thought. A solid 
mass is therefore in reality a concentration of force, and 
what we behold in the form of matter of any kind is only 
the symbol of stored-up energy, a visible expression of the 
invisible force residing in matter. Seen with the eyes of 
the spirit, matter and force are known to be only one , the 
twofold activity of one eternal reality, the twofold mani¬ 
festation of eternal power. 

Matter is an external visible manifestation of force, 
having become latent; Spirit is an internal invisible 
active power. Both are the two different modes of mani¬ 
festation of one primal cause. 

If we turn from the consideration of form to that of 
space, and examine what relation extension and duration 
bear to the consciousness of forms, we find that their 


6 4 


MATTER. 


qualities change according to our standard of measure¬ 
ment and according to our mode of perception. To an 
animalculae in a drop of water that drop may appear as an 
ocean, and to an insect living on a leaf that leaf may con¬ 
stitute a world. If during our sleep the whole of the visible 
world were to shrink to the size of a walnut or expand to 
a thousandfold its present dimensions, on awakening we 
should perceive no change, provided that change had 
equally affected everything, including ourselves. A child 
has no conception of its true relation to space, and may try 
to grasp the moon with its hands, and a person who has 
been born blind and is afterwards made to see, cannot judge 
of distances correctly. Our thoughts know of no intervening 
space when they travel from one part of the globe to 
another in an almost imperceptible space of time. Our 
conceptions of our relation to space are based upon 
experience and memory acquired in our present condition. 
If we were moving among entirely different conditions, our 
experiences, and consequently our conceptions, would be 
entirely different. Our idea of relative space is a mode of 
perception of distance, and there appear to be as many 
dimensions of space as there are modes of perception or 
consciousness. Space relatively to form can only have 
three dimensions, because all forms are composed of three 
dimensions—length, thickness and height. A conscious¬ 
ness existing in a mathematical point could have no con¬ 
ception of form, because such a point has no form. A 
consciousness existing in a line or in a plane without 
thickness could have no conception of form, because the 
former having only one, and the latter only two extensions, 
cannot exist as forms, but only as mathematical abstrac¬ 
tions. Consciousness in the absolute sense is without 
form, but entering into relation to form, its relation to 
space will be threefold, because three is the number of 
form. 

It is evidently an absurdity to talk about forms existing 
in a fourth dimension of space; because three is the 
number of form, and no form whatever, whether visible or 
invisible, can possibly exist without possessing the three 
factors, which are necessary to constitute it a form, namely, 
length, breadth and thickness. There may be innumer¬ 
able invisible powers in space; but whenever any such 
power manifests itself in a form, it always belongs to three 


SPACE. 


6 5 


dimensions of space. Absolute Space like Matter and Mo¬ 
tion is fundamentally one , and has no dimensions for any 
body. It only manifests dimensions, when it becomes 
relative to forms, and forms are necessarily always three 
dimensional. 

Space in the absolute is independent of form, but forms 
cannot exist independent of space. We may imagine our¬ 
selves to be in the midst of a solid rock, and we will be 
there in space, although there will be no room in which we 
could move. Everyone knows that there exists a difference 
between good and evil, between love and hate, between 
knowledge and ignorance ; but if two things or ideas differ 
from each other there is the idea of a distance of some kind 
between them, and distance means space, but a space that 
has in such cases no relation to form, and of which we can 
form no conception. 

As our conception of space is only relative, so is our 
conception of time. It is not time itself, but its measure¬ 
ment, of which we are conscious, and time is nothing to us 
unless in connection with our association of ideas. The 
human mind can only receive a small number of impressions 
per second ; if we were to receive only one impression per 
hour, our life would seem exceedingly short, and if we 
were able to receive, for instance, the impression of each 
single undulation of a yellow ray of light, whose vibrations 
number 509 billions per second, a single day in our life 
would appear to be an eternity without end.* To a 
prisoner in a dungeon, who has no occupation, time may 
seem extremely long, while for him who is actively engaged 
it passes quickly. During sleep we have no conception of 
time, but a sleepless night passed in suffering seems very 
long. During a few seconds of time we may, in a dream, 
pass through experiences which would require a number of 
years in the regular course of events, while in the uncon¬ 
scious state time has no existence for us. 

In books on mystical subjects we find often accounts of 
a person having dreamed in a short moment of time, things 
which we should suppose that it would take hours to dream 
them ; for instance the following : “ A traveler arrived late 
at night at a station. He was very fatigued, and as the 
conductor opened the door of the car, he entered, and im- 


Carl du Prel: “ Die Planetenbewohnerl 




66 


TIME. 


mediately fell asleep. He dreamed that he was at home, 
and living with his family; that he fell in love with a girl 
and married her; that he lived happy until he meddled 
with political affairs, and was arrested on a charge of having 
entered into a conspiracy against the government. He 
was tried, and condemned to be shot, and led out to be 
executed. Arrived at the place of execution, the command 
was given, and the soldiers fired at him, and he awoke at 
the noise caused by the shutting of the door of the car, 
which the conductor had shut behind him when our friend 
entered. It seems probable that the noise produced by 
shutting that door caused the whole dream.” 

In this state, when the experiences of the internal state 
mingles with the sensations of the external consciousness, 
the most erroneous impressions may be produced; because 
the intellect labors, logic and reflection exist; but reason 
does not act sufficiently powerful to discriminate between 
the true and the false. 

But what is the difference between objective and subjec¬ 
tive states of existence ? Our bodies do not cease to live 
while we are asleep, but we have a different kind of per¬ 
ceptions in either state. The popular idea is that objec¬ 
tive perceptions are real and subjective ones only the 
products of our imagination. But a little reflection will 
show that all perceptions, the objective as well as the sub¬ 
jective ones, are results of our “imagination.” If we look 
at a tree, the tree does not come into our eye, but its 
picture appears in our mind; if we look at a form we per¬ 
ceive an impression made in our mind by the image of an 
object existing beyond the limits of our body ; if we look 
at a subjective image or a thought, whether it be of our 
own creation or caused by the influence of another being, 
we perceive the impression which it produces on our mind. 
In either case the pictures exist in our mind, and we per¬ 
ceive nothing but the impressions made on the mind, and 
the only difference between the two is, that in the former 
case the impression is caused by something visible, and in 
the latter by something invisible to our physical sight, but 
the internal impressions may be as real as the external 
ones. If we close our eyes the latter vanish and the former 
appear more distinct. If our eyes are open, the former 
may become mixed with the latter, or be entirely superseded 
by them on account of their superior strength. 


PROJECTED MENTAL IMAGES. 


67 


The fact is, that everything appears either objective or 
subjective according to the state of consciousness of the 
perceiver, and what may appear to him entirely subjective 
in one state may appear to him objectively in another. 
The highest truths have to him who can realize them an 
objective existence, the grossest material forms have no 
existence to him who cannot perceive them. 

The basis upon which all exhibition of magical power 
rests is a knowledge of the relations that exist between 
object and subject. If we conceive in our mind of the 
picture of a thing we have seen before, an objective form 
of that thing comes into existence within our own mind, 
and is composed of the substance of our own mind. If 
by continual practice we gain sufficient power to hold on 
to that image and to prevent it from being driven away and 
dispersed by other thoughts, it will become comparatively 
dense, and be projected upon the mental sphere of others, 
so that the latter may actually believe to see objectively 
that which exists merely as an image within our own mind ; 
but he who cannot hold on to a thought and control it at 
will cannot produce its reflections upon the minds of 
others, and therefore such psychological experiments often 
fail, not on account of any absolute impossibility to per¬ 
form them, but on account of the weakness of those who 
desire to experiment, but have not the power to control 
their own thoughts, and to render them solid enough for 
transmission. 

Everything is either a reality or a delusion, according to 
the standpoint from which we view it. The words “ real ” 
and “ unreal ” are only relative terms, and what may seem 
real in one state of existence appears unreal in another. 
Money, luxury, fame, adulation, etc., appear very real 
to those who need them; seen from the point of view 
of a god who has no use for them they appear to be 
only illusions. That which we realize is real to us, 
however unreal it may appear to another, and the appear¬ 
ance of reality changes as our consciousness changes. 
If my imagination is powerful enough to make me firmly 
believe in the presence of an angel, that angel will be 
there, alive and real, my own creation, no matter how 
invisible and unreal he may be to another. If your 
mind can create for you a paradise in a wilderness, 
that paradise will have for you an objective existence. 


68 


OBJECTIVE EXISTENCE . 


Everything that exists, exists in the universal Mind. 
If the individual mind becomes conscious of his relation 
to a thing, it begins to perceive it. No man can cor¬ 
rectly conceive of a thing that does not exist, he cannot 
know anything with which he stands in no relation. To 
perceive, three facts are necessary : The perception, the 
perceiver, and the thing that is the object of perception. 
If they exist on entirely different planes, and cannot enter 
into relationship, no perception will be possible between 
them, and they will not know each other; if they are one, 
there will be no perception, because the three being one, 
there can be no relation ‘between them. If I wish to look 
at my face, and am not able to step out of myself, I must 
use a mirror to establish a relation between myself and the 
object of my perception. The mirror has no sensation, 
and I cannot see myself in the mirror, I can only see my¬ 
self in my mind. The reflection of the mirror produces a 
reflection which is objective to my individual mind, and 
which comes to my subjective perception. Looked at 
from the standpoint of individual perception, I and the 
image produced in my mind, as well as the mirror, have 
each a separate existence; but looked at from the stand¬ 
point of The Absolute, myself, the image and the mirror 
are only One; the difference between us is merely one of 
appearance. 

Reflection upon these facts will give us a key to an 
understanding of man’s nature, and some of his mysteries. 
We cannot objectively see the light or the tiuth, as long as 
we are within the centre of the one or the other. Only 
when we enter beyond the centre of the light, can we see 
the source of the latter; only when we fall into error, will 
we learn to appreciate the truth. As long as primordial 
man was one with the centre of universal power from 
which he emanated as a spiritual ray or entity in the 
beginning, he could not know the divine source from which 
he came. The will and imagination of the Universal Mind 
were his own will and imagination. Only when he began 
to “ step out of himself” could he begin to imagine that he 
existed as a separate “ Self; ” only when he began to act 
against the law, did he begin to realize that there was 
another law than his own. When man, as a spiritual 
entity, having attained perfection, enters again into the 
centre, his sense of self and separateness will be lost, but 


CREA TION. 


69 


he will be in possession of knowledge. To see a thing, it 
must become objective. To know a thing, we must be 
separated from it. When we fully comprehend a thing, 
we become one with it, and know it by knowing ourselves. 

This example is intended to illustrate the fundamental 
law of creation. The first great cause—so to say— 
stepping out of itself, becomes its own mirror, and thereby 
establishes a relation with itself. “ God ” sees His face 
reflected in eternal Nature; the Universal Mind sees itself 
reflected in the individual mind of man. The Father comes 
to relative consciousness in the Son, but when He again 
retires into Himself the relation will cease; the Father 
will then be again absolutely one with the Son. He will 
again become one with Himself, there will be no more 
relative consciousness, and “ Brahm will go to sleep " until 
the night of creation has ceased. But God knows that he 
exists even after all his relation with external things has 
ceased, and does not need to look continually into a mirror 
to be reminded of that fact. Likewise the absolute con¬ 
sciousness of the great lam is independent of the objective 
existence of Nature, and He will still (i sit on the great white 
throne after the earth and the heaven fled away from His 
face.” * 

If the world is a manifestation of the Universal Mind, 
everything that exists must exist in that mind; there can 
be nothing beyond the Universal Mind, because it is 
necessarily infinite; it can be only One, and there can be 
no beyond. We exist in that Mind, and all we perceive of 
external objects is the impressions which they produce 
upon our individual minds through the medium of the 
senses or by a superior mode of perception. 

The superior powers of perceptions are those possessed 
by the inner man , and they become developed after the 
inner man awakens to self-consciousness. They correspond 
to the senses of the external man, such as seeing, hearing, 


* St.John: Revelations xx. 2. If the old maxim is true that “it 
is above as it is below,” it then follows that God never sleeps. Man’s 
spirit is not unconscious when his physical body is asleep. On the 
contrary, it is more fully awake when centered in its own self- 
consciousness. Likewise the “ sleep of Brahm ” during Pralaya 
can only refer to his external creative activity, but not to his celestial 
existence in his own self-conscious light. 



70 


INNER SENSES. 


feeling, tasting, smelling, and other modes of perception, 
which are not yet developed in the physical man. 

External sensual perceptions are necessary to see sensual 
things ; the internal sensual perceptions are necessary to 
see internal things. Physical matter is as invisible to the 
spiritual sight as astral bodies are to the physical eyes ; 
but as every object in nature has its astral counterpart 
within the physical form, it may see, hear, feel, taste, and 
smell with its astral senses those astral objects, and there¬ 
by know the attributes of the physical objects as well or 
still better than the physical man might have been able to 
do with his physical senses; but neither the physical nor 
the astral senses will be able to perceive, unless they are 
permeated by the light of the spirit which endows them 
with life. 

If everything that exists is Mind, and if we ourselves are 
that Mind, all the forms of the subjective as well as the 
objective words can be nothing else but states of our 
Mind. Thought is the creative power in the universe. 
Thought-germs grow in the mind as the seeds of plants 
grow in the soil of the earth. The latter are quickened 
into life by the light of the sun, the former by the light of 
intelligence. At the beginning of a day of creation, Brahm, 
begins to create, his thoughts call worlds into existence. 
Things are materialized thoughts, or states of mind having 
been rendered objective. Few persons have the power to 
think spontaneously and independently, although all may 
believe to have that power; if they were able to manipulate 
thought they would be able to create. The majority of 
men only occupy themselves with the thoughts that come 
into their mind without their bidding; they are instru¬ 
ments or “ mediums ” through which the universal principle 
of mind thinks, but they are unable to originate a thought, 
much less to project it into objectivity through the power 
of the will. He who has gained the power to hold on to a 
thought may project it upon another, and the process will 
be facilitated if the “ receiver ” is in a passive state of sleep, 
hypnotism, or somnambulism. The expression “sugges¬ 
tion” is in such cases entirely inappropriate to describe what 
takes place ; “ Induction ” would be more appropriate ; 
for the passive person not merely acts upon the suggestion 
of his “ magnetizer,” but his will becomes a helpless instru¬ 
ment through which the thoughts of the former are induced 

ant nr>nn the subjective or objective plane. 


INDUCTION. 


7 * 


We usually look upon a thing as real if it is seen alike by 
several persons, while if only one person professes to see it, 
it being invisible to others, we may call it illusive; but all 
impressions produce a certain state of the mind, and a 
person must be in a condition—or state of mind—to enter 
into a relation with that state which the impression 
produces. All persons being in the same state of mind, 
and receiving the same impression, will perceive the same 
thing, but if their states differ, their perceptions will differ, 
although the impression coming to their consciousness will 
be the same. A horse or a lion may be seen alike by 
everyone ' ho has his normal senses developed; because 
all men having normal human senses, may be in the same 
mental state, but if one is excited by fear, or has his 
attention otherwise absorbed, his mental state will change 
and his perception will differ from that of others. A 
drunkard in a state of delirium tremens may believe to see 
worms and snakes crawling over his body. His experience 
tells him that they have no external existence. Neverthe¬ 
less they are horrible realities to him, and he seeks to rid 
himself of their presence. They really exist for him as the 
products of his own mental condition, but they do not 
exist for others who do not share that condition. But if 
others were to enter the same state they would see the 
same things, and he who sees them can make others see 
them, provided he is able to communicate to them his own 
consciousness—that is to say, his own mental state. 

Our perceptions therefore differ—not only in propor¬ 
tion as the impressions coming from the objects of our 
perception differ— but also according to our capacity to 
receive such impressions, or according to our own mental 
states. If we could develop a new sense we would believe 
to be in a new world, and if our capacity to receive im¬ 
pressions were restricted to only one sense, we would only 
be able to conceive of that which could become manifest 
to us through that sense and the world which we could 
perceive would be very limited. Let us suppose the 
existence of a being whose mode of perception were 
entirely different from our own, and who could enter into 
only one state of consciousness ; for instance, that of hate. 
Having all his consciousness concentrated into his guid¬ 
ing passion, he could become aware of nothing else but of 
hate. Such a “ god of hate,” incapable of entering into 


72 


MENTAL STATES. 


any other mental state, could perceive no other states but 
those corresponding with his own. To such a being the 
whole world would be dark and void, our oceans and 
mountains, our forests and rivers, would have no existence 
for him ; but wherever a man or an animal would burn with 
hate, there would be perhaps a lurid glow perceivable by 
him through the darkness, which would attract his atten¬ 
tion and attract him, and on his approach that glow may 
burst into a flame in which the individual from whom it 
proceeded may be consumed. Any other mental state or 
passion may serve for a similar illustration. Hate 
attracts hate, and Love attracts love, and a person full of 
hate is as incapable to love as a being full of love is inca¬ 
pable to hate ; both are mental states, which, after a person 
has fully entered them, cannot be changed at will. 

Man is that what he really wills. His whole being is 
nothing else but the ultimate product of a will acting in 
him ; not of his imaginary will, but of the real will, which is 
one and divine. 

The Bhagawad Gita says : “Those that are born under 
an evil destiny ” (having acquired evil tendencies by their 
conduct in former lives) “ know not what it is to proceed 
in virtue or to recede from vice ; nor is purity, veracity, 
or the practice of morality to be found in them. They 
say the world is without beginning and without end, and 
without an Ishwar, that all things are conceived in the 
junction of the senses, and that attraction is the only 
cause.” * 

Those who believe that everything exists in conse¬ 
quence of the attraction of two principles, forget that there 
could be no attraction if there were not some cause that 
produces that attraction, and that the attraction would 
cease as soon as the cause that produced it would cease to 
exist. They are the deluded followers of a doctrine 
which they themselves cannot seriously believe. They 
agree that out of nothing nothing can come, and 
yet they believe that the power of attraction was 
caused by nothing, and that it continues to exist without a 
cause. They are the followers of the absurd Two which 
has no real existence, because the eternal One divided into 
two parts would not become two Ones but the two halves 


* Bhagawad Gita, L. xvi. 



THE WILL . 


73 


of a divided One. One is the number of Unity, and Two 
is Division; the One divided into two ceases to exist as a 
One, and nothing new is thereby produced. If the plan 
for the construction of the world had been made according 
to the ideas of the followers of Dualism, nothing could 
have come into existence that did not already exist at a 
time when nothing existed, because action and reaction, if 
any existed, would have been of equal power, and there 
could be no progressing of anything existing at present. 
If Ormuzd (the principle of good) were of equal power 
with Ahriman (the principle of evil) there would be an 
end to all progression, and the state of the world from 
all eternity would have been the same ; but behind Ormuzd 
and Ahriman is the nameless and invisible fire , the law of 
evolution , and Ormuzd continually conquers Ahriman by 
the inherent power of good. If the Parsi worships the fire, 
he worships the invisible power of Good. The visible fire 
and the visible sun are the symbols which represent to 
him the invisible power and spiritual sun, and it would be 
difficult to find any symbols in nature more fit to represent 
the infinite power of good and light, by which the dark 
power of evil will be fully conquered in the end. 

Whatever this power of good may be, it is beyond the 
capacity of finite man to give it an appropriate name, or to 
describe it, because it is beyond the comprehension of 
mortal man. It has been called “ Godf and as such it 
has “ many faces/’ because its aspect differs according to 
the standpoint from which we behold it. It is the Supreme 
cause , from which everything comes into existence ; it must 
be absolute consciousness, wisdom and power, love, intelli¬ 
gence and life, because these attributes exist in its mani¬ 
festations, and could not have come into existence without 
it. It has been called Space, because everything exists in 
space, but space itself is incomprehensible to us, although 
we exist in it and are surrounded by it. Space is a term 
which has no meaning, unless it means extension, and ex¬ 
tension is an attribute of Matter, but matter cannot exist 
without Motion, and the motion of matter is caused by the 
Law. Space, Matter and Motion in the absolute are in¬ 
comprehensible to us, because man being a relative beinsj 
can only comprehend that to which he stands in. relation. 
Being bound to a form he can only know that which exist* 
relatively to form. 


74 


GOD. 


The Absolute , independent of relations and conditions, is 
the original cause of all manifestations of power. An 
attempt to describe it would be equivalent with an attempt 
to describe something which has no attributes, or of whose 
attributes we can form no conception. When Gautama 
Buddha was asked to describe the supreme source of all 
beings, he remained silent, because those who have reached 
a state in which they can realize what it is, have no words 
to describe it,* and those who cannot realize it would not 
be able to comprehend the description. To describe 
the absolute we must invest it with comprehensible 
attributes, and it then ceases to be The Absolute and 
becomes relative. Therefore all theological discussions 
about the nature of “God ” are useless, because “God ” has 
no natural attributes, but Nature is His manifestation. 
If we use the word “ God ” in its legitimate meaning, as 
“ Good ,” then to deny the existence of God is an absurdity, 
equivalent to denying one’s own existence, because all 
existence can be nothing else but a manifestation of life, as 
“ Good.” To declare to possess an intellectual knowledge 
of God is equally absurd, because we cannot know any¬ 
thing of which we cannot conceive. He can only be 
spiritually known, but not scientifically described, and the 
fight between so-called Deists and Atheists is a mere 
quarrel about words which have no definite meaning. 
Every man is himself a manifestation of God, and as each 
man’s character differs from that of every other, so each 
man’s idea of God differs from that of the rest, and each 
one has a God (an ideal) of his own ; only when they all 
attain the same, the highest ideal, will they all have the 
same God. 

To him who does not believe in the power of Good, the 
power of Good does not exist, and its existence cannot be 
demonstrated to him. To him who feels the presence of 
Good, Good exists, and to him its existence cannot be 
disputed away. The ignorant cannot be made to realize 
the existence of knowledge unless he becomes knowing ; 
those who know cannot have their knowledge reasoned 
away unless they forget what they know. The caricatures 
of gods set up by the various churches as representations 
of the only true God are merely attempts to describe that 
which cannot be described. As every man has a highest 


2 Corinth, xii. 4. 



ABSOLUTE GOOD. 


75 


ideal (a god) of his own, which is a symbol of his aspir¬ 
ations, so every church has its peculiar god, who is an out¬ 
growth or a product of evolution of the ideal necessities of 
that collective body called a church. They are all true 
gods to them , because they answer their needs, and as the 
requirements of the church change, so change their gods; 
old gods are discarded and new ones put into their places. 
The god of the Christian differs from that of the Jews, and 
the Christian god of the nineteenth century is very different 
from the one that lived at the time of Torquemada and 
Peter Arbues, and was pleased with torture and Autos-da- 
Fe. As long as men are imperfect their gods will be im¬ 
perfect ; as they become more perfect their gods will grow 
in perfection, and when all men are equally perfect they 
will all have the same perfect “ God,” the same highest 
spiritual ideal and the same universal reality, recognized 
alike by science and by religion; because there can be 
only one supreme ideal, one absolute Truth, whose reali¬ 
zation is Wisdom, whose manifestation is power expressed 
in Nature, and whoy* most perfect production is ideal 
Man. 

There are seven steps on the ladder, representing the 
religious development of mankind : On the first stage man 
resembles an animal, conscious only of his instincts and 
bodily desires, without any conception of the divine ele¬ 
ment. On the second he begins to have a presentiment 
of the existence of something higher. On the third he 
begins to seek for that higher element, but his lower ele¬ 
ments are still preponderating over the higher aspirations. 
On the fourth his lower and higher desires are counter¬ 
balancing each other. At times he seeks for the higher, 
at other times he is again attracted to the lower. On the 
fifth he anxiously seeks for the divine, but seeking it in 
the external he cannot find it. He then begins to seek for 
it within himself. On the sixth he finds the divine element 
within himself and develops spiritual self-consciousness, 
which on the seventh grows into self-knowledge. Having 
arrived at the sixth, his spiritual senses begin to become 
alive and active, and he will then be able to recognize the 
presence of other spiritual entities, existing on the same 
plane. His will then becomes free from every selfish 
desire, his thoughts become obedient to his will, his word 
becomes an act, and he may then rightfully be called an 
Adept . 


A 

CHAPTER III. 


FORM. 

“ The Universe is a thought of God.”— Paracelsus. 


According to Plato the primordial essence is an emanation 
of the Demiurgic Mind , which contains from eternity the 
idea of the natural world within itself, and which idea He 
produces out of Himself by the power of His will. This 
doctrine seems to be almost as old as the existence of 
reasoning man on this globe. It contains essentially the 
same truth which has been taught by the ancient Rishis , 
and has been expressed—although, perhaps, in other terms 
—by the deepest thinkers of all ages, apparently from the 
first planetary spirit , that made his appearance on this 
earth, down to the modern philosophers who teach that the 
world is a product of ideation and will,* although the lat¬ 
ter seem to forget that will and ideation cannot exist 
independently of something that wills and thinks, but are 
the functions of some unknown principle or Cause. 

This One unknown cause comes into knowable existence 
when the unmanifested Absolute manifesting itself assumes 
a threefold aspect. Upon this truth is based the doctrine 
of the Trinity , which we find represented in the most 
ancient religious systems of the East as well as in Christian 
symbolism, and without which even so-called “ rational¬ 
istic science ” becomes irrational ; because if the “ mate¬ 
rialist ” (correctly) states that there can be no matter 
without motion and no motion without matter, he must— 
to remain logical—add that the existence of matter and 
the activity of motion must have some cause. He may not 
know that cause, but the cause nevertheless is there, even 
if we know nothing at all about it, except that it is. The 


Schopenhauer : “ Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.” 



TRINITY, 


77 


trinity of rational science is therefore Action, Reaction, and 
Causation, or, in other words, Matter, Motion , and Cause 
(Potency). 

The great Christian Mystic, Jacob Boehme, describes the 
Great First Cause as a trinity of will, thought, and action. 
His doctrine corresponds to that which is taught in the 
East, regarding the three emanations of Brahm, and of 
which that German shoemaker could at that time have 
hardly known anything, if he had not been an Illuminate, 
He says, in his book on “ The Three Principles ,” that by 
the activity of the Will-Fire at the Cetitre the eternal con¬ 
sciousness of the latter was reflected in Space as in a mirror, 
and from this activity Light and Life were born. He then 
describes, how by the action radiating from the incompre¬ 
hensible centre, radiating into the element of Matter, and 
the subsequent reaction from the periphery toward the 
centre, rotation, mixture of the essential substances and 
complexedness were caused, and how at last the Ether, the 
world of forms, came into existence, and grew into material 
density. Thus the will of the Father (Love) sent out the 
Son (Life), and through that action the power of the Father 
in the Son (Light), or the “Holy Ghost ” became manifest, 
and its manifestation is the visible and invisible universe 
in one, with all its suns, stars, planets, their forms and 
inhabitants, with all the angels and demons, devas, ele- 
mentals, men and animals, or in other words, with all the 
energies and powers and forms of the visible and invisible 
side of nature. 

This trinity manifests itself on three different planes or 
modes of action , that have been termed Matter, Soul, and 
Spirit, or, according to the symbolism of ancient occult 
science, Earth, Water, and Fire. The One becomes 
manifest in the Three, but the Three is a whole and does 
not consist of three parts, of which one comes into suc¬ 
cession after another, it springs into existence at once. 
Reactio7i cannot exist without Action, and both are due to 
a co-existing Cause. The Father does not become a 
Father before the arrival of the Son, and that which pro¬ 
duces the Son is the power resting in the Father, his Will 
manifesting itself as the Spirit pervading all nature. There 
is no motion without matter or without cause; no cause 
without an effect and without something upon which an 
effect is produced. There can be no extension and dur- 


7 » 


OBJECTIFIED SPACE. 


ation or “ Space ” without matter or motion, and no form 
without space. Absolute space is invisible, and we cannot 
conceive of its form. We cannot imagine it to be without 
any limits, nor can we conceive of any limits to it with no 
space beyond it; relative space is limited and exists as a 
form. There can be no empty space, because “ space ” 
means extension, and we cannot conceive of “ nothing ,” 
nor can “ nothing ” have an extension. Forms are—so to 
say—space which has been rendered objective, crystalized 
into some shape which may or may not be perceptible to 
our senses, and no form can exist but in space. 

These forms come into existence by the action of the 
three elements, Fire , Water and Earth , neither one of 
which exists without the other two ; because they are not 
three different things per se, but only three aspects of the 
eternal One. 

Spirit or “ Fire ” is an immaterial, formless, and 
universal element. It is the matrix in which everything 
was contained before it was thrown into objectivity by the 
awakening of its Will. It is the Will itself; the source of 
all power and the substance of which all is made. “ God 
is a fire, to which none can approach except through the 
Son.” The dark fire cannot be known to man except 
through the light which emanates from it. Life would never 
be known, unless it becomes manifest, and to become 
manifest, a form is required. No magical process has ever 
been accomplished without the magic fire, and to learn to 
know the true nature of that fire is the great desideratum 
of every occultist. 

Soul or “ Water ” or “ Light ” is a semi-material element. 
It is the organizing element of corporeal forms. The soul 
of microcosmic man corresponds to the soul of the macro¬ 
cosm. It is the playground of the elemental forces of nature, 
existing in the astral plane. It penetrates and surrounds 
the planets as it surrounds and penetrates the bodies of 
men and animals and all other bodies and forms, and all 
material forms are—so to say—only “ materialized souls,” 
that will perish after the light has been extracted from 
them. The light is the redeemer from darkness on every 
plane of existence. It comes from the fire ; but it is not 
itself the fire. It is a principle in itself, and its attributes 
are different from those of the fire. It is itself the life of 
everything. 


ELEMENTS. 


79 


Matter or “Earth” is an invisible material element 
pervading all space. Condensed by the organizing power 
of the soul, it clothes the forms of the latter and renders 
them visible on the physical plane. But not all forms are 
visible to the physical sense of sight, the material forms 
which we see are not the only forms in existence. The 
invisible world, hidden in the visible one, could be dis¬ 
covered by man if he were able to draw the veil from matter, 
because within the material form resides the invisible 
element of which the visible form is only the external 
expression. 

From the interaction of the three primordial elements, 
Spirit, Soul and Matter, four compound principles be¬ 
come manifest, and these four added to the three former 
represent seven principles. This sevenfold division in the 
constitution of the Macrocosmos and Microcosmos was 
known to the ancient sages of the .East as well as to 
Western Adepts, such as Paracelsus and others, and has 
recently been brought prominently to the notice of the 
public by the teachings of the Eastern Adepts. 

As a matter of course, however, all such divisions are 
arbitrary, for man is an undivided whole, and we may divide 
his constitution in as many parts as we please for the 
purpose of facilitating this study. We may look upon him 
as a unity or in a dual aspect as a manifestation of Spirit 
acting in Matter, or as a trinity of Spirit, Body and Soul, 
or in his fourfold aspect as a representation of four states 
of consciousness; as a full accord of five harmonious 
powers, as a compound of four elements joined to the 
fifth, the quintessence of all things, as a revelation of six 
visible powers emanating from a seventh but invisible 
centre, etc. The sevenfold classification recommends 
itself on account of its simplicity, and because it can be 
easily seen to harmonize with the customary threefold 
classification. 

Jacob Boehme teaches that of these seven principles or 
natural qualities, the first and the seventh are one, and 
refer to the Father ; the second and sixth as one refer to 
the Son, and likewise the third and fifth to the Holy 
Spirit. 

It has been stated as follows : 

i. A—The element of Matter A’hdsa, represented 
by “ Earth 


So 


SEVEN PRINCIPLES. 


2. AB.—A combination of Matter and Soul, known 

as the Astral Body , a mixture of “ Earth and 

Water.” 

3. B.—The Soul , known as the Perisprit, or the 

animal principle in man, represented by “ Water.” 

4. ABC.—The Essence of Life , a combination of 

Matter, Soul, and Spirit, “ Earth, Water, and 

Fire.” 

5. AC.—The Mind , a combination of Matter and 

Spirit, or “ Earth and Fire ” (the principle of 

Intellectuality). 

6. BC.—The Spiritual Soul, a combination of Soul 

and pure Spirit, or “ Water and Fire ” (the 

principle of Spiritual Intelligence). 

7. C.—Pure Spirit or “ Fire,” the incomprehensible 

First Great Cause.* 

The division adopted by Paracelsus and in “ Esoteric 
Buddhism ” is identical with the above, with the exception 
that the Jiva or Vitality is counted as the second, and the 
Astral body as the third principle ; as follows :—1. The 
physical body (Stoolasariram). 2. Vitality (Mumia). 3. 
Astral Body (Sidereal body). 4. Animal Soul. 5. Intel¬ 
lectual Soul. 6. Spiritual Soul. 7. Spirit. 

It is said that this division was also known to the 
ancient Jews, and that the Hebrew Alphabet, consisting of 
22 letters, was made with reference to it; because the 
three in seven states produces twelve symbols, and 3+7 
+ 12 = 22. 

Jacob Boehme describes the action of these seven 
principles in his own way. He says : 

“ When the light was born at the Centre , the (spiritual) 
Sun, and reacted upon the central fire, a terrible battle 
ensued, causing an igneous eruption, and from the sun 
proceeded a flash of storm and fire, an element, called 
Mars. Taken captive by the light, it assumed a place 
and continues to agitate all nature. The light, having 
been enchained by Mars, proceeded further in the rigidity 


* The Sanscrit terms for the seven principles are : 1, Pracriti ; 
2, Lingasariram; 3, Kamarupa; 4, Jiva; 5, Manas; 6, Buddhi ; 
7, Atma (Param-Atma, Brahmam, Parabrahm).—See “ Five years of 
Theosophy,” p. 153. 



PLANETARY POWERS. 


Si 


of the element of matter (Saturn), and became corporeal 
in forms. 

“ Above the element called Jupiter, in the adstringent 
anguish of the whole body of this solar system, the Sun 
was not powerful enough to mitigate the horror, and there 
arose Saturn , the element, opposite to meekness, produ¬ 
cing rigidity. The Sun is the heart of Nature, the Centre 
of Life; Saturn represents corporeal nature or Matter. 
Without the action of the Life coming from the Sun upon 
Matter, there would be no production of forms. Venus 
is the daughter of the Sun. She rises out of the water of 
the universe, penetrates the hard element of matter and 
enkindles Love. Mercury (like the others, an invisible 
element) represents the principle of sound, or the Word , 
by whose activity the sleeping germs of everything are 
awakened to life. Mercury is continually impregnated by 
the substance of the Sun. In it is found the knowledge of 
that which existed before the light had penetrated into the 
solar centre. The Moon was produced directly from the 
Sun at the time of his becoming material. The Moon is 
the spouse of the Sun. She is the Eve, who was made out 
of a part of Adam, while the latter was asleep.” 

In this classification The Sun represents Wisdom, the 
Moon, Imagination, Mercury , the Mind substance, Venus , 
the Astral Body, Mars, the principle of Life, Jupiter, the 
element of Power, Saturn , primordial Matter; but the 
significations of these planets differ according to the aspects 
we take of them. 

All forms are the expression of either one or more of 
these elementary principles, and exist as long as their 
respective principles are active in them. They are not 
necessarily visible, because their visibility depends on 
their power to reflect light. Invisible gases may be solidi¬ 
fied by pressure and cold, and rendered visible and tangible, 
and the most solid substances may be made invisible and 
intangible by the application of heat. The products of 
:osmic thought are not all sufficiently materialized to be 
visible to the physical eye, and in reality we see only a 
very small part of their sum. No one doubts that there is 
an immense amount of invisible matter in the universe, 
whether cometary or otherwise, and every improvement in 
the manufacture of optic instruments brings new realms of 
forms and life to our perception. 


$2 


INVISIBILITY. 


Each transformation of activity gives rise to changes of 
forms, and may bring new forms into existence. Solid ice 
may be transformed into invisible vapor, and condensed 
again into a tangible form. The more matter expands and 
the more its motion is made active, the more will it escape 
the perception of the physical senses, but its expansion 
does not necessarily render it less powerful to act. Steam 
is more powerful than water, and overheated to a certain 
degree it evolves electricity, and may become very des¬ 
tructive. The more the element of matter is condensed, 
the more inert does it appear; the more it expands, the 
farther will its sphere of activity reach. 

All bodies have their invisible spheres. Their visible 
spheres are limited by the periphery of their visible forms ; 
their invisible spheres extend farther into space. Their 
spheres cannot be always detected by physical instruments, 
but they nevertheless exist, and under certain conditions 
their existence can be proved to the senses. The sphere 
of an odoriferous body can be perceived by the organ of 
smell, the sphere of a magnet by the approach of iron, the 
sphere of a man or an animal by that most delicate of all 
instruments, the abnormally sensitive brain. 

These spheres are the magnetic, coloric, odic, or lumi¬ 
nous auras and emanations belonging to every object in 
space. Such an emanation may sometimes be seen as the 
Aurora Borealis in the polar regions of our planet, or as 
the photosphere of the sun during an eclipse. The 
“ glory ” around the head of a saint is no poetical fiction, 
no more than the sphere of light radiating from a precious 
stone. As each sun has its system of planets revolving 
around it, so each body is surrounded by smaller 
centres of energy evolving from the common centre, and 
partaking of the attributes of that centre. Copper, Carbon, 
and Arsenic, for instance, send out auras of red; Lead 
and Sulphur emit blue colors ; Gold, Silver and Antimony, 
green ; and Iron emits all the colors of the rainbow. Plants, 
animals, and men emit similar colors according to their 
characteristics; persons of a high and spiritual character 
have beautiful auras of white and blue, gold and green, in 
various tints ; while low natures emit principally dark red. 
emanations,which in brutal and vulgar or villainous persons 
darken almost to black, and the collective auras of bodies 
of men or plants or animals, of cities and countries, cor- 


SPHERES AND EM ANA TIONS. 83 

respond to their predominant characteristics, so that a 
person whose sense of perception is sufficiently developed 
may see the state of the intellectual and moral development 
of a place or a country by observing the sphere of its 
emanations. , 

These spheres expand from the centre, and their periphery 
grows in proportion to the intensity of the energy acting 
within the centre. Who can measure the extent of the 
sphere of thought and the depth of the regions to which it 
may penetrate, who can determine the distance to which 
the power of Will and Love and spiritual Perception will 
act? We know the sphere of a rose by the odor that 
proceeds from the latter if we have the power to smell, we 
know the character of the mind of a man if we enter the 
sphere of his thoughts, provided that our inner senses are 
sufficiently developed to become conscious of the state of 
his mind. 

The quality of psychic emanations depends on the state 
of activity of the centre from which they originate, for 
each thing and each being is tinctured with that particular 
principle which exists at the invisible centre, and from this 
centre receives the form of its own character or attributes. 
They are symbols of the states of the soul of each form, 
they indicate the state of the emotions. Each emotion 
corresponds to a certain color : Love corresponds to blue, 
Desire to red, Benevolence to green, and these colours 
may induce corresponding emotions in other souls, 
especially if the emotional element is guided by reason. 
Blue has a soothing effect, and may tranquilize a maniac 
or subdue a fever; Red excites to passion, a steer may be 
furious at the sight of a red cloth, and an unreasoning mob 
become infuriated at the sight of blood. This chemistry 
of the soul is not any more wonderful than the facts known 
in physical chemistry, and these processes take place 
according to the same law which causes Chloride of Silver 
to turn from white into black if exposed to blue or white 
light, while ruby red or yellow light leaves it unchanged. 

The thoughts of the Universal Mind expressed in matter 
on any plane, comprise all the forms of the mineral, 
vegetable, and animal kingdoms on Earth, including the 
bodies and souls of all beings. Their physical forms are 
the expressions of three principles, and each material form 
contains within itself its ethereal counterpart, which may, 


84 


THE CENTRE . 




I 

I 


under certain conditions, separate itself from the more 
material part, or be extracted therefrom by the hands of an 
Adept. These astral parts may be corporified and be 
rendered visible. Actually all bodies, even the most solid 
rocks, are nothing else but corporified astral appearances, 
whose innermost substance is the fire whose light is their 
life. Every individual being is a flame in creation whose 
light differs from others according to its own particular 
attributes. 

Astral forms continue to exist for a while after the 
visible bodies to which they belong have had their fire 
extinguished. The astral corpses of the dead may be seen by 
the clairvoyant hovering over the graves, bearing the 
resemblance of the once living man. They may be arti- 
fically infused with life and with a borrowed consciousness, 
and made use of in the practices of Necromancy and 
Black Magic , or be attracted to “ spiritual seances” to 
represent the spirits of the dead. 

There are persons in whom this principle—either in 
consequence of constitutional peculiarities or in conse¬ 
quence of disease—is not very firmly united with the 
physical body, and may become separated from it for a 
short period.* Such persons are suitable “ mediums ” for 
so-called spirit-materializations, their ethereal counter¬ 
parts may appear separated from their bodies and assume 
the visible form of some person either living or dead. It 
receives its new mask by the unconscious or conscious 
thoughts of the persons present, by the reflections thrown 
out from their memories and minds, or it may be made to 
represent other characters by influences invisible to the 
physical eye. 

As the brain is the central organ for the circulation of 
nerve-fluid, and as the heart is the organ for the circula¬ 
tion of the blood, so the spleen is the organ from which 
the astral elements draw their vitality, and in certain 
diseases, where the action of the spleen is impeded, this 
“ double ” of a person may involuntarily separate itself 
from the body. It is nothing very unusual that a sick 


* This intimate relation of the astral form and the physical body is 
often illustrated at so-called exposures of “ spiritual mediums.” If a 
materialized form is soiled by ink or soot, the coloring matter will 
afterwards be found on the corresponding part of the medium’s body, 
because, when the astral form re-enters that body, it will leave the 
soiling matter on the corresponding parts of the latter. 




ASTRAL FORMS . 


85 


person feels “as if he were not himself’’ or as if another 
person was lying in the same bed with him, and that he 
himself were that other. Such cases of “ Doppelgaengers,” 
Wraiths, Apparitions, Ghosts, etc., caused by the separa¬ 
tion of the Lingasariram from the physical form, can be 
found in many works treating of mystic phenomena 
occurring in nature.* 

Usually these astral forms are without consciousness 
and without any life of their own ; but they may be made 
to be the seat of life and consciousness, by withdrawing 
the life from the material form and concentrating it into 
the astral body. A person who has succeeded in doing 
this may step out of his physical form and live independent 
of the latter, and an Adept may even entirely remain out¬ 
side his physical body and continue to live in his ethereal 
and invisible form, f 

The forms in the realm of Soul, in which the fourth 
principle is the essential element, aje still more ethereal and 
more independent of a definite form. This will not seem 
incomprehensible, if we remember that they too are forms 
of thought, and that a thought or an idea may take a 
defined shape or may remain shapeless and undefined. If 
we, for instance, hear the word “ animal,” we conceive of 
a living being of some shape or other, but give our con¬ 
ception no definite form; but if the animal is described as 
one with whose form we are acquainted, the picture of that 
form will come to the consciousness of the mind. Con¬ 
centration of thought gives shape to ideas and condenses 
the formless into forms. Purely spiritual or abstract ideas, 
such as love, faith, hope, charity, etc., have no shapes and 
cannot be conceived as forms, they can at best be symbol¬ 
ized by forms which are made to guide our thoughts 
towards the formless ideas whose attributes they are 
intended to bring before our imagination. 


* Adolphe D’Assier : “ L’humanit^ posthume.” 

+ The stories of fakirs who have been buried alive for months and 
resurrected afterwards might here be used as illustration. They are too 
well known to need repetition in this place. Moreover, phenomena, 
however well attested they may be, can never stand in the place of 
knowledge; they furnish no explanation of the mysterious laws of 
nature. The occurrence of phenomena proves nothing but that they 
occur. Real knowledge is never attained by the observation of external 
phenomena, it can only be attained by the knowledge of self. 



86 


SPIRITS. 


Among the ancients it was customary to make such 
personifications of impersonal powers, and to describe 
their functions in symbols and allegories. The first 
Christians adopted that system. Modern religionism 
believes those allegories to represent dead persons and 
peoples, and knows nothing about the living principles 
which they represent. 

As there are three elements represented in the three 
kingdoms of the physical plane, so there are three king¬ 
doms of Elementals existing on the astral plane, corres¬ 
ponding to the elements of fire, water, and earth. Indivi¬ 
dual forms on that plane may often make their presence 
felt to men or animals, but under ordinary circumstances 
they cannot be seen. They may, however, be seen by the 
clairvoyant, and, under certain conditions, even assume 
visible and tangible shapes. Their bodies are of an elastic 
semi-material essence, ethereal enough so as not to be 
detected by the physical sight, and they may change their 
forms according to certain laws. Bulwer Lytton says: 
“Life is one all-pervading principle, and even the thing 
that seems to die and putrefy but engenders new life and 
changes to new forms of matter. Reasoning then by 
analogy—if not a leaf, if not a drop of water, but is no less 
than yonder star—a habitable and breathing world— 
common sense would suffice to teach that the circumfluent 
Infinite, which you call space—the boundless Impalpable 
which divides the earth from the moon and stars—is filled 
also with its correspondent and appropriate life.” 

And further on he says : “ In the drop of water you see 
animalculae vary; how vast and terrible are some of these 
monster-mites as compared with others. Equally so with 
the inhabitants of the atmosphere. Some of surpassing 
wisdom, some of horrible malignity, some hostile as fiends 
to man, others gentle as messengers between Earth and 
Heaven.” * 

Our sceptical age is accustomed to admire in such 
descriptions the “ fancy ” of the writer, never suspecting 
that they were intended to convey a truth; but there are 
many witnesses to testify—if it were necessary—that such 
invisible but substantial and variously shaped beings exist, 
and that they, by the educated will of man, can be made 


Bulwer Lytton : ** Zanoni.’ 



ELEMENTAL SPIRITS OF NATURE. 87 

conscious, intelligent, visible, and even useful to man. 
This assertion is supported by the testimony found in the 
writings of Rosicrucians, Cabbalists, Alchemists, and 
Adepts, as well as in the ancient books of wisdom of the 
East and in the Bible of the Christians. 

Such existences are, however, not necessarily personal 
beings. They may be impersonal forces, acquiring form, 
and life, and consciousness by their contact with man. 
The Gnomes and Sylphes , the Undines and Salama?iders> 
do not entirely belong to the realm of fable, although they 
may be something very different of what the ignorant 
believe them to be. How insignificant and little appears 
individual man in the infinity of the universe ! and yet 
there is only a comparatively insignificant part of the 
universe revealed to him by the senses. Could he see the 
worlds within worlds above, beneath, and everywhere, 
swarming with beings whose existence he does not suspect, 
while they, perhaps, know nothing of his existence, he 
would be overwhelmed with terror and seek for a god to 
protect him; and yet there are none of these beings higher 
or as powerful as the spiritual man who has learned to 
know his powers, and in whom his own god has awakened 
to consciousness and strength.* 

The beings of the spiritual plane are such as have once 
been men, their constitution is beyond the comprehension 
of those that are not their equals, and their ethereal forms 
in a state of perfection we cannot conceive. Having out¬ 
grown the necessity of residing in a form they enter the 
state of the formless, approaching evermore the Universal 
Mind, from which the power called Man emanated at the 
beginning. We may look upon a personal man as a single 
note in the great orchestra composing the world, and upon 
a Dhyan Chohan f as a full accord or a compound of 
notes in the symphony of the gods. There may be unhar- 
monious compositions of notes in music, and there are evil 
spiritualities as there is darkness in contradistinction to 
light, because a high grade of intelligence may be used for 
vile purposes ; but the good spirituality cannot be con- 


* Paracelsus gives detailed descriptions of these beings, 
t Son of Wisdom (Angel). 



88 


SOUL INDUCTION. 


quered by evil, because it is protected by wisdom, which 
is essentially good, and of which evil is but the reverse. 

There are good and evil spiritual beings, and either class 
may possess a great deal of knowledge and power; but 
only the good—that is to say, kind and benevolent powers, 
can be considered wise —because v/isdom means a union 
of knowledge and love, from which the highest powers 
spring. To be wise, is to be good and beautiful and true. 
Evil spiritualities may be very strong, but they cannot 
overcome the good ones, because they lack wisdom, and 
wisdom is itself the divine will of God. 

What is a spirit ? Nothing else but a thought rendered 
alive by the will; a ray of light, receiving its impulse by the 
fire hidden therein. A thought without will is unsubstantial, 
like an image in a mirror; made active by the will, it 
assumes life, substance and form. We all are spirits as 
long as we have the will; but when the will leaves a man, 
his life goes with it, and his body, the shadow, fades 
away. 

The realm of the Soul is the realm of the emotions. 
Emotions are not merely the results of physiological 
processes depending on causes coming from the physical 
plane, but they belong to a form of life on the astral plane, 
they often come and go without any apparent cause. The 
state of the weather, or circumstances over which we have 
no control, may cause certain emotions independently of 
our state of physical health. A person entering a room 
where every one is laughing is liable to participate in the 
common emotion without knowing the cause of the hilarity; 
a whole crowd may be swayed by the intense emotion of a 
speaker, although they may not fully understand what he 
says ; one hysterical woman in a hospital ward may create 
an epidemic of hysteria among the other women, and a 
whole congregation may become excited by the harangue 
of an emotional exhorter, no matter whether his language 
is foolish or wise. A sudden accumulation of emotion or 
energy on the astral plane may kill a person as quickly as 
a sudden explosion of powder. We hear of persons who 
were “ transfixed by terror” or “ paralyzed by fear.” In 
such cases the astral consciousness having become abnor¬ 
mally active at the expense of the consciousness on the 
physical plane, the activity of life on the physical plane 
may cease, and the affected person may faint, or perhaps 
die. 


FORMATION. 


89 


All forms come into existence according to certain laws. 

' The solar microscope shows how, in a solution of salt, a 
centre of matter is formed, and how to that centre its 
kindred forces are attracted, crystalizing around it, and 
becoming solid and firm. Each kind of salt produces the 
peculiar crystals that belong to its class and no other, how¬ 
ever often the process may be repeated. In the vegetable 
kingdom we see that the seed of one plant will attract to 
itself those forces which it requires to produce a plant 
resembling its parent; the seed of an apple-tree can 
produce nothing else but an apple-tree, and an acorn can 
grow into nothing else but an oak. The principal charac¬ 
teristics of an animal will be those that belong to its 
parents, and the external appearance of a man will cor¬ 
respond more or less to that of the race and family in 
which he was born. 

As every mathematical point in space may develop into 
a living and conscious and visible being, after once a 
certain centre of energy (a germ) has been formed, so in 
the invisible realm of the soul astral forms may come into 
existence wherever the necessary conditions for their 
growth exist. In the same manner as an active motion on 
the physical plane may attract the universally diffused 
matter around a common centre, likewise an active emotion 
on the astral plane may crystalize around a thought into 
an invisible but nevertheless substantial entity, which may 
have an existence of long or short duration according to 
the intensity with which the forces composing it are concen¬ 
trated upon its centre. As the forms on the physical 
plane correspond to the characters of the forces prevailing 
upon that plane, so the forms on the astral plane are ex¬ 
pressions of the characteristics of the prevailing emotions 
on that plane. They may manifest themselves either in 
beautiful or in horrible shapes, because every form is only 
the symbol or the expression of the character which it 
represents. 

The forms in the mineral kingdom are expressive of 
forces acting in straight and angular lines, those of the 
vegetable kingdom represent radiating and curved lines; 
the animal forms are expressions of forces acting on the 
astral plane, and the inhabitants of the astral plane may 
resemble visible animal or human forms. In those forms 
which belong exclusively to the astral plane the higher 


90 


PHANTOMS. 


spiritual energies are not active. They may have a con¬ 
sciousness of their own and realize their existence, but 
under ordinary circumstances they have no more intelli¬ 
gence than animals, and cannot act intelligently and in 
accordance with reason. They follow their blind attraction, 
as iron is attracted to a magnet, and wherever they find an 
excessive amount of emotion evolved by a human being 
they are attracted thither as to a common centre, and their 
accumulation increases the activity of that centre and 
increases the size of its sphere. We therefore often see 
that if one emotion is not controlled in the beginning it 
may grow and become uncontrollable. Some people have 
died of grief and some others of joy. 

But if these unintelligent forms are infused with the 
principle of intelligence proceeding from man, they become 
intelligent and act in accordance with the dictates of the 
master from which they receive their will and intelligence, 
and who may employ them for good or for evil. Every 
emotion that arises in man may combine with the astral 
forces of nature and create a being, which may be per¬ 
ceived by persons possessing abnormal faculties of per¬ 
ception as an active and living entity. Every sentiment 
which finds expression in word or action may call into 
existence a living entity on the astral plane. Some of 
these forms maybe very enduring according to the intensity 
and duration of the thought that created them, while others 
are the creations of one moment and vanish in the next. 

There are numerous cases on record in which some 
person or other having committed some crime is described 
as having been persecuted for years by some avenging 
demon, who would appear objectively and disappear again. 
Such demons may be, and perhaps can be nothing else but 
the products of the involuntary action of the imagination 
of their victims; but they are nevertheless real to the lat¬ 
ter. They may be called into existence by memory and 
remorse, and their images, existing in the mind, may 
become objective by fear, because fear is a repulsive 
function ; it instinctively repulses the object of which a 
man is afraid, and by repelling the image from the centre 
towards the periphery of the sphere of mind, that image 
may be rendered objective. 

Instances are known in which persons have been driven 
to suicide, hoping thereby to escape these persecuting 


DOUBLES . 


91 


demons. Such demons are said to have in some cases 
taken even a tangible form. But whether tangible or in¬ 
tangible, the substance of which they are formed is merely 
a projection of substance of the person to whom they thus 
appear. They are, so to say, that person himself, and if 
the latter could injure or kill such a “ghost,” he would 
merely thereby injure or kill his own body.* 

An Adept in a letter to Mr. Sinnett says : 

“Every thought of man upon being evolved passes into 
another world and becomes an active entity by associating 
itself—coalescing we might term it—with an Elemental—. 
that is to say, with one of the semi-intelligent forces of 
the kingdoms. It survives as an active intelligence—a 
creature of the mind’s begetting—for a longer or shorter 
period, proportionate with the original intensity of the 
cerebral action which generated it. Thus, a good thought 
is perpetuated as an active, beneficent power, an evil one 
as a maleficent demon. And so man is continually 
peopling his current in space with the offspring of his fan¬ 
cies, desires, impulses, and passions ; a current which 
reacts upon any sensitive or nervous organization, which 
comes in contact with it, in proportion to its dynamic inten¬ 
sity. The Adept evolves these shapes consciously, 

other men throw them off unconsciously.” * 


* In the “ Lives of the Saints,” and in the history of witchcraft, we 
often find instances of the appearance of “ doubles ” in visible and even 
tangible forms. Such phenomena may take place in mediumistic per¬ 
sons, if by contrary emotions the Will becomes divided, acting in two 
different directions, and projecting thereby two forms; for it is the 
spiritual Will of man that creates subjective forms, consciously or un¬ 
consciously, and under certain conditions they may become objective 
and visible. 

As an illustration of this law we may cite from the Acta Sanctorum 
an episode in the life of Saint Dominic. He was once called to the 
bedside of a sick person, who told him that Christ had appeared to him. 
The saint answered that this was impossible, and that the apparition 
had been produced by the devil, because only holy persons could have 
an apparition of Christ. . As he said so, a doubt as to whether the 
apparition seen may not have been a true one after all entered his 
mind, and immediately a .division of consciousness was produced, which 
caused the double of Dominic to .appear at the other side of the patient’s 
bed. The two Dominies.were seen by the patient, and heard to dis¬ 
pute with each other, and whfie.one Dominic asserted that the apparition 
had been the work of the devil, the other one maintained that it was the 
true Christ. The two Dominies were so exactly identical, that the 




92 


THOUGHT SHAPES. 


This testimony is corroborated by one coming from 
another source, and proving that to create subjective forms 
it is not necessary to give a distinct shape to our thoughts 
by the power of imagination, but that each state of feeling 
or sentiment may find expression in subjective forms, 
whether or not we may be conscious of their existence. A 
form is a state of mind, and a sentiment is a state of mind; 
a sentiment expressed will be represented by a correspond¬ 
ing form. 

Mr. Whitworth, a clairvoyant, describes how in his youth, 
while seeing a German professor perform on an organ, he 
noticed a host of appearances moving about the keyboard 
—veritable Lilliputian sprites, fairies, and gnomes, astonish¬ 
ingly minute in size, yet as perfect in form and features as 
any of the larger people in the room. He described them 
as being divided into sexes and clothed in a most fantastic 
manner; in form, appearance and movement they were in 
perfect accord with the theme. 

“ In the quick measures, how madly they danced, waving 
their plumed hats and fans in very ecstasy, and darting to 
and fro in inconceivable rapidity, with feet beating time in 
rain-like patter of accord! Quick as a flash, when the 
music changed to the solemn cadence of a march for the 
dead, the airy things vanished, and in their place came 
black-robed gnomes, dressed like cowled monks, sour¬ 
faced Puritans, or mutes in the black garb of a funeral 
procession ! Strangest of all, on every tiny face was 
expressed the sentiment of the music, so that I could 
instantly understand the thought and feeling that was 
intended to be conveyed. In a wild burst of sounding grief 
came a rush of mothers, tear-eyed and with dishevelled 
hair, beating their breasts and wailing pious lamentations 
over their dead loved ones. These would be followed by 

patient did not know which of them was the true saint, and which one 
his image, and he could not make up his mind what to believe ; until 
at last the saint called upon God to assist him,—that is to say, he con¬ 
centrated his will-power again within himself ; his consciousness became 
again a unity, and the “ double ” disappeared from view. 

Absurd as such stories may appear to our “ enlightened age,” their 
absurdity ceases when the occult laws of nature, and the fact of the possi¬ 
bilities of a double consciousness are understood. 

* A. P. Sinnett: “ The Occult World.” 



SPIRITS OF MUSIC . 


93 


plumed knights with shield and spear, and host of fiery 
troops, mounted or foot, red-handed in the fiery strife of 
bloody battle, as the clang of martial music came leaping 
from the keyboard, and ever, as each change brought its 
new set of sprites, the old ones would vanish into the air 
as suddenly as they had come. Whenever a discord was 
struck, the tiny sprite that appeared was some mis¬ 
shapen creature, with limbs and dress awry, usually a 
humpbacked dwarf, whose voice was guttural and rasping, 
and his every movement ungainly and disagreeable.” 

He then describes how in his riper age he saw such fairy¬ 
like beings coming from the lips of persons talking, and 
which seemed in every action the very counterpart of the 
feeling conveyed in the uttered speech. If the words were 
inspired by good sentiments, these figures were transcen- 
dentally beautiful; bad sentiments produced horrid-looking 
creatures ; hate was expressed by hissing snakes and dark, 
fiery devils ; treacherous words produced figures beautiful 
in front and disgusting and horrid behind ; while love 
produced forms silvery, white, and full of beauty and 
harmony. 

“ On one never-to-be-forgotten occasion I was a pained 
witness to a scene of living faithfulness on one side and a 
double-faced, treacherous duplicity on the other. A fair 
young girl and her departing lover had met to exchange 
greetings ere he went on a distant journey. Each word 
of hers gave forth beautiful, radiant fairies ; but while the 
front half of each that was turned to the girl was equally 
fair to look upon, and smiled with all the radiant seeming 
of undying affection, the rear half of each was black and 
devilish, with fiery snakes and red-forked tongues pro¬ 
truding from their cruel lips, as gleams of wicked cunning 
danced in sneaking, sidelong glances from the corners of 
the half-closed eyes. These dark backgrounds of the little 
figures were horrible to look at, ever shifting, dodging, and 
seeming to shut up within themselves, as they sought to 
keep only bright and honest toward the trusting girl, and 
hold the black deception out of sight. And it was notice¬ 
able that while a halo of cloudless radiance surrounded 
the good outside seeming, a pall of thick vapor hung like 
a canopy of unbroken gloom above the other.” * 


Religio-Philosophical Journal. 



94 


APPARITIONS. 


It would be absurd to suppose that these forms had any 
objective existence outside of the mind of the man who 
observed them. They were the creations of the involun¬ 
tary action of his mind, and represented the various mental 
states which were produced in quick succession by the 
impressions his mind received; but they furnish a good 
illustration to the theory, that each form expresses a 
certain character, and that each mental state corresponds 
to a certain form, in which it may find its expression. 

The above description coincides with what has been 
described by others, and proves that thoughts and senti¬ 
ments are something substantial residing in the imagination 
of man, and which may affect his inner world for good or 
for evil, and that the necessity of controlling thoughts and 
desires is not a matter of little importance, but has a 
practical use. But those who reject such testimony and 
consider such forms as illusive may remember that not 
only such forms, but all forms, are only apparitions, and 
that they all represent invisible truths. Before the pure 
light of reason all illusions will disappear in the end and 
the truth appear—not hidden in forms, but in the sublime 
splendor of its purity—before the wondering gaze of 
spiritually-awakened Man. 

But although subjective forms are manifestations of life 
they have no appropriate active will of their own. They 
are the creations of the thought of man acting upon the 
A’kasa. They are only kept alive by the life-power that 
radiates into them from the life-centre in man. They are 
like shadows, vanishing when the fountain of light from 
which they drink is exhausted. When the psychical action 
of man, that gave them life, ceases to act, or acts in another 
direction, they will disappear sooner or later. However, 
as the corpse of a man does not dissolve immediately as 
soon as the principle of life has departed, but decays 
slowly or rapidly according to their molecular density and 
cohesion, likewise the astral forms created by the desires 
of man may require a considerable time for their dissolution 
according to the amount of will-fire made active in them. 
They continue to exist as long as man infuses life and 
consciousness into them by his thought and his will, and if 
they have once gained a certain amount of power, they may 
still cling to him, although he may not desire their com¬ 
panionship. They depend on him for their life, and the 


DEVILS. 


95 


struggle for existence forces them to remain with the 
source from which they draw their vitality. If they depart 
from that fountain they die; they are therefore forced to 
remain, and, like the phantom created by “ Frankenstein,” 
they persecute their creators with their unwelcome pre¬ 
sence. To rid oneself of such a presence, he who is 
persecuted should direct the full power of his aspirations 
and thoughts into another and higher direction, and there¬ 
by starve them to death. In this way the spiritual principle 
of every man becomes his special Redeemer , who by the 
transformation of character saves him from the effects of 
his sin, and before whose pure light the illusions created by 
the lower attractions will melt like the snow under the 
influence of the sun. 

Elemental forms being the servants of their creator—in 
fact, his own self—may be used by him for good or for evil 
purposes. Loves and hates may create subjective forms 
of beautiful or of horrid shapes, and, being infused with 
consciousness, obtain life, and may be sent on some errand 
for good or for evil. Through them the magician may 
blend his own life and consciousness with the person he 
desires to affect. A lock of hair, a piece of clothing, or 
some object that has been worn by the person he desires 
to affect, may form a connecting link between himself and 
the latter. The same object may be attained if that person 
is put into possession of an article belonging to the 
magician, because wherever a portion of anything with 
which the magician was connected exists, there will a part 
of his own elements exist, which will form a magnetic link 
between him and the person whom he wishes to affect. If 
he has developed his astral senses, distance will not pre¬ 
vent him to observe the person with which he is connected; 
if he can project his astral form at a distance, his form may 
be present with his victim, although the latter may not be 
able to see it. 

The astral image of a person may be projected con¬ 
sciously or unconsciously to a distance. If he intensely 
thinks of a certain place, his thought will be there, and 
consequently he will be there, for the thought of a man is 
the most important part of himself. Wherever a man’s 
consciousness is, there is the man himself, no matter 
whether his physical body is there or not. 

The history of spiritualism and somnambulism furnishes 


ASTRAL PROJECTION. 


abundant evidence that a person may be consciously and 
knowingly in one place, while his physical body lies dor¬ 
mant in another. Franciscus Xaver was thus seen in two 
different places at one and the same time. Likewise 
Apollonius of Tyana, and innumerable others mentioned 
in ancient and modern history. 

The Elemental sent by a magician is an essential part of 
the magician himself, and if the victim is vulnerable by 
being mediumistic—with other words, by not having his 
own principles held together by the power of his reason 
and will, the latter may be injured by the former. But the 
former, too, if his astral form be materialized to a certain 
extent, even if not sufficiently to be visible to the eye, may 
be injured by physical force, and as the astral form re¬ 
enters the physical body, the latter will partake of the 
injuries inflicted upon the former.* 

The magician, who by the power of his will has obtained 
control over the semi-intelligent forces of Nature, can make 
use of these forces for the purposes of good or evil. The 
helpless medium, through whom manifestations of occult 
power take place, can neither cause nor control such mani¬ 
festations. He cannot control the elementals, but is 
controlled by them. The elements of his body serve as 
instruments through which these astral existences act, after 
the Medium has surrendered his will and given up the 
supreme command over his soul. He sits passively and 
waits for what these elementals may be pleased to do; he 
unconsciously furnishes them with his life and power to 
think, and his thoughts and the thoughts of those that are 
present may become reflected in these astral forms, or may 
enable them to manifest an intelligence of their own. 

A medium for spirit-manifestations is merely an instru¬ 
ment for the manifestation of invisible forces over which 
he has no control, and the more mediumistic a person is, 
the less will he be liable to exercise a will of his own. 
The best of such mediums have been very unjustly blamed 
for *• cheating for a medium which would not “cheat” is as 
unthinkable as a mirror that would not reflect the objects 
before it. The thoughts of the persons visiting a Medium, 
and who are trying to find out his “ impostures,” are taken 
up by the Medium and reflected by him. It is therefore 


* Des Mousseaux : “ Mceursdesdemons.” Ennemoser: “ Magie.” 



SPIRITUALISM. 


97 


not the Medium’s person that cheats, but his visitors 
cheating themselves through his instrumentality. A 
mirror that would not reflect all the objects that are 
brought before it, would be a very unnatural and deceptive 
thing; a Medium who would only reflect such thoughts as 
he chose to reflect would be an impostor, for being able to 
exercise his own will he would not be in that passive 
condition which constitutes his mediumship. 

The Adept in Magic is not the slave of these forces, but 
controls them by the power of his will. He may con¬ 
sciously infuse life and consciousness and intelligence 
into them and make them act as he pleases ; they obey 
his commands because they are a part of himself. The 
spiritualists do this unconsciously; they frequently sing 
at their seances to produce harmony, and they know that 
the more the conditions are harmonious the better will be 
the manifestations. The reason for this is, that the more 
harmony exists in a circle, the less will there be any 
exercise of individual will, the less concentration of self, 
and the easier will it be for these influences to use the 
will and the vitality of the sitters. 

These animal astral existences belong to the kama rupa 
form of existence, and their forms are therefore too ethereal 
to act directly upon gross matter. They, therefore, need 
the assistance of an intermediary principle, which is 
furnished by the second principle in man, the combination 
of soul and matter, called Lingasariram. This may be 
furnished by the astral elements of the living, or by the 
astral remnants of those whose bodies are dead. 

The astral elements used by the Elementals in spiritual 
seances for the purpose of producing physical phenomena, 
are not only taken from the medium , but from all present, 
whose constitution is not strong, and who may therefore 
furnish such elements. In seances for materializations , 
they are also taken from the clothing of those present, and 
furnish material for the drapery of the “ spirits,” and it 
has been observed, that the clothing worn by people who 
frequently attend to such seances wears out sooner than 
usual. 

To bring fresh-spilled blood into such “ spiritual 
seances,” would probably increase the strength of the 
“ materializations ” very much, and a knowledge of such 
facts has given rise to the abominable practices of black 

4 


*8 


GHOSTS. 


magic, which are still going on in many parts of the world, 
although secretly and unknown to the police. This 
knowledge has also undoubtedly given rise to the sacrifice 
of animals in the performance of religious ceremonies. A 
certain executioner was unfortunately gifted with clair¬ 
voyance, and after having decapitated a person he could 
see the “ spirits ” of dead people—sometimes even his 
friends and relatives—pounce upon the fresh-spilled blood 
of the criminal, and feed on its emanation and aura. He 
became so disgusted that he had to resign his position. 
It is also a fact that, at a time when the blood-drinking 
mania in Europe was started by medical ignorance, many 
people who practised it became insane, and others became 
demoralized by it. 

The astral remnant of man is without judgment and 
reason, it goes wherever his instincts may attract it, or 
wherever any unsatisfied craving may impel it to go. If 
you wish to be haunted by the “ ghost ” of a man, attract 
him by the power of love or hate which you felt for the 
man. Leave some promise unfulfilled which you might 
have fulfilled, and instinctively the astral form of the 
deceased will be attracted to you to seek its fulfilment, 
drawn to you by its own unsatisfied desire. 

Such an astral form is not necessarily in any way con¬ 
sciously connected with the real spirit of that person, as 
will be clear to those who have studied the doctrines of the 
constitution of man. It may be merely that combination of 
his lower principle, or his astral corpse , which made up the 
animal man . But if the man was very brutish, having all 
or nearly all his consciousness concentrated into his 
animal elements, such a remnant may constitute all, or 
nearly all, there ever existed of that person, except his 
higher reason , which may have fled even before his death. 
There are endless varieties of combinations of circumstances 
existing on the astral as well as on the physical plane ; there 
is no pattern by which all cases can be explained alike. 
Their study belongs to the department of Necromancy . 

It is not his fault if you do not perceive his presence and 
hear his voice, it is because your astral senses are asleep 
and unconscious; you may feel his presence and it may 
cause a feeling of depression in your mind; he speaks to you 
but in a language thatyou have notyet learned to understand. 
In those elementary remnants remains that which con- 


necromancy. 


99 


stituted the lower nature of man, and if they are tempor¬ 
arily infused with life, they will manifest the lower charac¬ 
teristics of the deceased, such as have not been sufficiently 
refined to join his immortal part. If a music-box is set to 
play a certain melody and made to start, it will produce that 
same melody and no other, although it has no consciousness 
of its own. The remnant of emotional and intellectual 
powers in the astral remnant of man will, if this remnant 
is made to speak, become manifest in the same kind of 
language which the man during his life used to speak. 

The fresh corpse of a person who has suddenly been 
killed, may be galvanized into a semblance of life by the 
application of a galvanic battery. Likewise the astral 
corpse of a person may be brought back into an artificial 
life by being infused with a part of the life-principle of the 
medium. If that corpse is one of a very intellectual 
person, it may talk very intellectually; and if it was that 
of a fool, it will talk like a fool. The intellectual action 
resembles mechanical motion in so far that if it is once 
set into action it will continue without any continual effort 
of the will, until it is exhausted or comes to a stop. We 
often see this in daily life. There are old and young 
people frequently seen who are in the habit of telling 
some favorite story, which they have already told many 
times, and which they repeat on every ocassion. It may 
be noticed, that when such an one begins to tell his story, 
it is of no use to tell him that one knows it already. He 
has to finish the story in spite of himself. 

An orator or a preacher does not need to think and 
reason about each word he utters separately. When the 
stream of ideas once flows, it flows without any effort of 
the will. If ideas flow into the astral brain of a deceased 
person, infused with life by the medium, that brain will 
elaborate those ideas in the same way it was accustomed 
to do during life. 

We also reason while we dream; we draw logical con¬ 
clusions during our sleep; but reason is absent, and 
although, while we dream, our logic seems to be reason¬ 
able, nevertheless we often see that it was foolish when 
we awake and when our reason returns, or becomes active 
again. 

The mental organism of man resembles a clockwork, 
which if it is once set into operation will continue to run 




loo 


EVIL ASSOCIATIONS. 


until its force is exhausted ; but there is no clockwork 
which winds itself up without extraneous assistance. anO 
there is no mental organism able to think without a powei 
that causes it to begin the process of intellectuation. 

In a departed soul the attraction of good and evil still 
continues to act, until the final separation of the higher 
and the lower takes place. It may follow the attraction of 
the higher principles in nature and be attracted to spirit, 
or it may again come into contact with matter through the 
instrumentality of mediumship, take again part in the 
whirling dance of life, although by vicarious organs ; follow 
once more the seduction of the senses, and lose entirely 
sight of the immortal self. 

It is therefore not merely dangerous to a person to hold 
intercourse with the “ spirits of the departed ; ” but it is 
especially injurious to the latter,—as long as the final 
separation of their lower principles from the higher ones 
has not yet taken place. Necromancy is a vile art, and so 
has therefore always been abhorred. It may disturb the 
blissful dreams of the sleeping soul, which aspires to a 
higher state of existence. It is like roughly attacking a 
saint during his hours of meditation, and to force him to 
take an interest in affairs of the lower life, which can be of 
no use to him in his efforts to rise into a superior state. It 
is a step towards degradation ; and as every impulse has 
a tendency to repeat itself, the most terrible consequences 
may follow after what seemed to be at first merely some 
innocent amusement. 

These astral remnants may be used by the black magi¬ 
cian and by the elemental forces in nature for the purpose 
of evil. If they are unconscious, they will only serve as 
the instruments of the latter ; if they are conscious they 
may enter into an alliance and co-operate with them. 

Such alliance, either consciously or unconsciously on the 
part of him who enters into such an unspiritual inter¬ 
course, may take place between an evil-disposed person 
and a very evil inhabitant of the astral plane, whose whole 
consciousness has been concentrated within his lower 
principles. We are convinced that many people who are 
in actual possession of powers to work black magic work 
evil unconsciously; that is to say, that if they hate a 
person, they are often unconscious of the effects which 
their hate produces upon the latter, and of the mode in 


SORCERY. 


ioi 


which it acts. The spiritual force created by their hate 
may enter the organism of the object of their hate and 
cause some bodily sickness, and the person from whom 
the evil power proceeds may be entirely ignorant of the 
fact that it was his own hate which produced the sickness. 
Such black magicians merely furnish the elements of evil, 
by which invisible powers act. The animal elements, 
existing in the soul of man, may, after having attained a 
certain degree of vitality, be projected by hate towards 
another person and enter his soul, even unknown to him, 
from whom they originate. But they are still a part of the 
life-principle of the person from whom they originated, and 
if they cannot take hold of the soul of him, against whom 
they are directed, they return again to the source from 
which they originated, and may kill him, from whom they 
emanated. It is therefore said, that if the will of the black 
magician is not strong enough to effect his evil purpose, 
the force will return and kill the magician. 

This is undoubtedly true, and the grossest illustration of 
it is, if a person by a fit of rage or jealousy is induced to 
kill himself. It is the reaction following an unfulfilled 
desire, which induces the rash act; the act is merely a 
result of his previous mental state. 

The surest protection against all the practices of black 
magic, whether they are caused consciously or uncon¬ 
sciously, is to acquire strength of character,—in other 
words, faith in the divine principle within one’s own 
soul. 

As man becomes ennobled, the lower elements in his 
constitution are thrown off and replaced by higher ones, 
and in a similar manner a transformation may take place 
in the opposite way if he degrades himself by his thoughts 
and acts. Sensual man attracts from the A’kasa those 
elements that his sensuality requires, for gross pleasures 
can only be felt by gross matter. A man with brutal 
instincts growing and increasing may degrade himself into 
a brute in character, if not in external form. But as the 
form is only an expression of character, even that form 
may again approach an animal in resemblance. 

The proof of this assertion is seen every day, for we 
meet every day in the streets brutish men, whose animal 
instincts are only too well expressed in their external 
forms. We meet with human snakes, hogs, wolves, and 


102 


DEGRAD A TIOJV. 


those upon whom alcohol has stampeds it seal, and it does 
not need the instructions given in books on physiognomy 
to enable almost anybody to read the character of certain 
persons more or less correctly expressed in their exterior 
forms. 

In the physical plane the inertia of matter is greater 
than in the astral plane, and consequently its changes are 
slow. Astral matter is more active, and may change its 
form more rapidly. The astral body of a man whose 
character resembles an animal may therefore appear to 
the seer as an animal in its outward expression.* 

The astral form of an evil person may appear in an 
animal shape if it is so filled with brutish instincts as to 
become identified in his imagination with the animal 
which is the expression of such instincts. It may even 
enter the form of an animal and obsess it, and it sometimes 
happens that it enters such forms for its own protection 
against immediate decomposition and death. 

It would be useless to give anecdotes, illustrating 
instances, in which such things took place. The principal 
object of the reader should be to learn to know the essen¬ 
tial constitutions of man, by observing the conditions of 
his own being and the law which regulates all forms of 
matter and functions. If he once understands the modes 
in which the law may act, it will be a matter of little im¬ 
portance to know in what particular cases it may have 
manifested itself in such modes. Accounts of phenomena 
can never supply the place of the understanding of the 
law. 

Popular traditions speak of human beings having 
assumed the form of animals, roaming about and injuring 
men and cattle. Modern culture is prone to pronounce 
impossible everything that she cannot explain ; but the 
existence of such forms is theoretically not impossible, 
because a person may project his astral elements at a 
distance and make them appear in a material form, and 
that form is not necessarily human, because man is what 
he thinks , and his exterior shape may adapt itself to the 
true character by the power of his imagination. 

* E. Swedenborg : “Heaven and Hell.” 



CHAPTER IV. 


LIFE. 

“ I never was not , nor shall I hereafter cease to be.” 

Bhagwat Gita . 

The universe of forms may be compared to a kaleidoscope 
in which the various forms of the original energy manifest 
themselves in an endless variety, appearing, disappearing, 
and re-appearing again. As in a kaleidoscope the pieces 
of variously-colored glass do not change their substance, 
but only change their positions, and, through the delusive 
reflections of mirrors at each turn of the instrument, are 
made to appear in new constellations and figures, so the 
0?ie Life manifesting itself appears in an infinite number 
of forms and colors, acting as “ matter ” or “ force,” 
unconscious or conscious, blind or intelligent, voluntary or 
involuntary, from the atom, whose auras and others rush 
through a common vortex,* invisibly but nevertheless 
substantial, up to the blazing suns whose photospheres 
extend over millions of miles, and from the microscopic 
Amoeba, whose protoplasm manifests only the rudiments 
of instinct, up to perfect Man, whose intelligence conquers 
the gods. 

Forms are isolated and materialized thoughts. If you 
can hold on to a thought and isolate it from others, you 
call into existence a form. If you can impart to that 
form your consciousness, you may make it conscious ; if 
you can invest it with the element of matter, you may 
make it visible and tangible; but few persons are able to 
hold on to one single thought even for one single minute of 
time, because their minds are wavering and flickering; 
few can transfer their consciousness, because they cannot 


* Babbitt: “ Principles of Light and Color.” 




104 


UNITY OF EXPRESSION 


voluntarily forget their own selves; few can control the 
element of earth, because it is their master, and they are 
attracted by it. The prototypes of all forms exist in the 
Astral Light , which is the Universal Soul in which 
resides the Universal Mind; the A 1 has a or Universal 
Matter being its more material substance. If a form 
comes into existence on the physical plane, its growth is 
simply a process by which something that already exists 
becomes visible and material, or, to speak more correctly, 
a lower state of vibration of the same element. This some¬ 
thing is the idea or character of the form, and as each 
character is a unity, such a character will be distinctly 
expressed in all parts of the form. A human being—for 
instance—will not have the body of a man and the head of 
an animal, but its human character will be expressed in all 
its parts, and as the character constituting humanity is 
expressed in all human individuals, so is the character of 
an individual expressed in all its parts. This is a truth 
upon which the doctrines of Astrology, Phrenology, 
Chiromancy, Physiognomy, etc., are based, which—if 
rightly understood—are not only possibly true, but must be 
necessarily and imavoidably true, because Nature is a 
Unity. The nature of an animal, a plant, or a man, is a 
unity, and is therefore expressed in all the parts of each 
respective form. It can be scientifically demonstrated that 
each component part of an organism is a microcosm, in 
which are represented the principles composing that 
organism. We may by examining a part of a leaf know 
that it comes from a plant, and by looking at an animal 
substance see that it came from an animal, or by testing 
even the most minute part of a mineral or metal know that 
it belongs to the mineral kingdom. Likewise we may read 
a man’s character in his hands or face or feet or in any 
other part of his body, if we have acquired the art how to 
read it correctly. 

These things are known to physical science. But if the 
power of interior perception is once attained, a still greater 
world of wonders is opened before the astonished sight of 
the seer; he will then perceive that every part of an 
organism bears the correct impression of the form of the 
whole, and upon each particle is u photographed ” by the 
Astral Light the picture of the body to which it belongs. 

The suns and planets in space as well as all terrestrial 


SIGN A TURES. 


105 


objects have their souls, else they could have no bodies ; 
because their bodies are only the external expressions of 
the soul, and their character rests in their souls. Their 
souls act upon each other and are acted upon by all, and 
as the characters of these souls change, so change the 
physical forms. These astral influences, constituting the 
soul of the Universe, build up all forms, they modify the 
character and the growth of minerals, plants, and animals, 
they are the cause of endemic and epidemic diseases, they 
evolve in the course of ages variously-shaped animals, they 
predetermine to a certain extent the destiny of men,* and 
furnish the energies whose character impresses itself upon 
everything. Their signatures may be seen in the book of 
life belonging to every form, in the size and shape of 
features and limbs, in the lines of the hands, in the color 
of eyes and hair.f They are the forces by which the 
U?iiversal Mi?id puts his mark upon everything, and those 
who are able to read may find the true history of every¬ 
thing written upon the leaves of its soul.J Likewise every 
individual mind prints his character upon every one of 
his thoughts, words, and acts, and upon the soul of 
everything which comes within his sphere. 

Upon this law is based the science of Psychometry. By 
this science we may obtain a true history of past events. 
By psychometrically examining a stone taken from a 
house we may obtain correct information in regard to the 
former or present inhabitants of a house, or a fossil may give 
a true description of antediluvian scenery and of the mode 
of life of prehistoric animals or men. By the psychometrical 
examination of a letter we may obtain information about 
the person who wrote the letter and also of the place in 


* This is to be taken in the same sense as heat and cold, rain and 
sunshine ; miasmas and earthquakes may change the fortune and destiny 
of men who do not take due care to protect themselves against their 
effects; but as man by the power of his intellect has become able to 
guard himself against the inimical influence arising in the external 
plane; likewise by the exercise of his will and intelligence he may 
overcome the dangers threatening him from the astral plane. 

+ Debarolles: “ My stores de la main.” 

£ Prof. W. Denton : “ Soul of Things.” J. R. Buchanan : “ Manual 
of Psychometry. 



lo 6 


PS YC HO ME TR V. 


which the letter was written. If this art were universally 
known and practised, criminals could be detected by 
examining psychometrically a piece of the wall, the floor, 
or the furniture of the room in which a murder or robbery 
was committed; it would make an end to convicting of 
innocent persons on circumstantial evidence, or to letting 
the guilty escape for want of proof; for the psychometer 
would, by the superior powers of his perception with the 
spiritual eye, see the murderer or robber or counterfeiter 
as plain as if he had seen them with his external eyes while 
the deed was committed. 

Each form is the external expression of a certain 
character which it represents, and as such it has certain 
peculiar attributes, which distinguish it from other forms. 
A change of its character is followed by a gradual change 
of the form. An individual who becomes degraded in 
morals will, in the course of time, show his degradation in 
his external appearance ; persons of a different appearance 
and different characters may, in the course of time, as their 
characters harmonize, resemble each other to a certain 
extent in appearance. Forms of life, belonging to the 
same class and species, resemble each other, and each 
nationality has certain characteristics expressed in the 
individuals belonging to it. A full-blooded Irishman will 
not easily be mistaken for a full-blooded Spaniard, although 
the two may be dressed alike, but if they both emigrate to 
America their children or grandchildren will in time lose 
the national characteristics which their ancestors pos¬ 
sessed. Change of character changes the form ; but a 
change of external form does not necessarily change the 
character. A man may lose a leg and become a cripple, 
and still his character may remain the same as before ; a 
child may grow into a man, and still his character remain 
that of a child unless modified by education. 

These facts are incontrovertible proofs that the character 
of a being is more essential than his external form; that 
the form is illusive, and that the reality is a principle which 
is independent of form. If the character of an individual 
were to depend on his inherited form, children born of the 
same parents and educated under the same circumstances 
would always manifest the same mental characteristic, but 
it is well known that the characters of such children often 
differ widely from each other, and they may possesy 
characteristics which their parents do not possess. 


CHARACTER. 


107 


If, as it frequently happens, children show the same or 
similar talents and intellectual capacities as their parents, 
such a fact is by no means a proof that the parents of the 
child’s physical body are also the parents or producers of 
its intellectual germ; but it may be taken as an additional 
evidence of the truth of the doctrine of reincarnation , 
because the spiritual monad of the child would be natur¬ 
ally attracted, in its efforts to reincarnate, to the bodies of 
parents, whose mental and intellectual constitution would 
correspond nearest to its own talents and inclinations, 
developed during a previous earthly life. 

Characters may exist independent of external conditions; 
the latter can only modify, but not create, the former. 
The best soil will not produce an oak tree unless an acorn 
is present, and a Cholera Baccillus will not produce 
cholera where the “ predisposition ” to that disease does 
not already exist. Forms may facilitate the development 
of character, but they do not create it, and persons that 
appear in every respect alike may be of a very different 
character. 

How can we account for such moral and intellectual 
discrepancies in forms that are merely alike, as long as we 
shut our eyes to the truth, that that which is essential in a 
being, whether rational or irrational, is its character, and 
that its form is only the external expression of that internal 
and invisible character, which may survive after the form 
has ceased to exist, and after the dissolution of the form 
finds its expression again in another form ! Forms die, 
but their character remains unchanged after their death, 
preserved in the Astral Light , like the thoughts of man 
stored up in his memory, after the events that called them 
into existence have passed away. A character does neither 
die nor change after it has left the form, but, after a time 
of rest in the subjective state, it will reimbody itself again 
in a new-born objective form, to grow and change its 
nature during the life of the form. Seen from this stand¬ 
point, “ death ” is life, because, during the time that death 
lasts, that which is essential in a form does not change ; 
life is death, because only during life in the form the char¬ 
acter is changed, and old tendencies and inclinations die 
and are replaced by others. 

Each form is an incarnation of a certain character. Our 
passions and vices may die while we live; if they survive 
us they will be born again. 


io8 


REINCARNA TIOET. 


The character of an oak exists before the acorn begins 
to grow, but the growing germ attracts from earth and air 
such elements as it needs to produce an oak ; the character 
of a child exists as such before the physical form of the 
child is born into the world, and attracts from the spiritual 
atmosphere the elements to which its aspirations and 
tendencies are attracted. Each seed will grow best in the 
soil that is best adapted to its constitution, each human 
monad existing in the subjective state will be attracted at 
the time of its incarnation to parents, whose qualities may 
furnish the best soil for its own tendencies and inclinations, 
and whose moral and mental attributes may correspond to 
its own. The physical parents cannot be the progenitors 
of the spiritual germ of the child, that germ is the product 
of a previous spiritual evolution, through which it has 
passed in connection with former objective lives. In the 
present existence of a being the character of the being that 
will be its successor is prepared. 

Therefore, every man may be truly said to be his own 
father; for he is the incarnated result of the personality 
which he evolved in his last life upon the planet, and the 
next personality which he will represent in his next visit 
upon this globe is evolved by him during his present life. 

The development of a plant reaches its climax in the 
development of the seed; the development of the animal 
body reaches its climax in the capacity to reproduce its 
form, but the intellectual and spiritual development of a 
man may go on long after he has acquired the power of 
reproduction, and it may not have reached its climax when 
the physical form is on the downward path, and ceases to 
live. The condition of the physical body may undoubtedly 
furnish facilities for the development of character in the 
same sense as a good soil will furnish facilities for the 
growth of a tree; but the best soil cannot transform a 
thistle into a rose-bush, and the son of a good and intel¬ 
lectual man may be a villain or a dunce. 

As a primordial essence proceeds to manifest itself in 
forms, it descends from the universal condition to general, 
special, and finally individual states. As it ascends again 
to the formless, the scale is reversed, and the individual 
units expand, to mingle again with the whole. Life on the 
lowest planes manifests itself in an undifferentiated con¬ 
dition ; air has no strictly defined shape; one drop of 


DIFFERENTIA TION OF FORM. 


109 

water in the ocean shares an existence common to all 
other drops; one piece of clay is essentially the same as 
another. In the vegetable and animal kingdom the 
universal principle of life manifests itself in individual 
form; still there is little difference between individual 
plants, trees, animals, and men belonging to the same 
species, and the peculiar attributes which distinguish one 
individual form from another cease to exist when the form 
disappears. That which essentially distinguishes one 
individual from another is independent of form, and exists 
after the form has ceased to live. Distinctions of form are 
perishable, but distinctions of character remain; those 
attributes which raise their possessors eminently above 
the common level begin at a state when external appear¬ 
ances cease to be of great consequence. Socrates was 
deformed and yet a great genius; the size of Napoleon’s 
body was not at all in proportion with the greatness of his 
intellect. Honor and fame rise above the grave of the 
form, and the influence of great minds often grows stronger 
after the bodies that served them have turned to dust. 
Strong minds expand far beyond their physical form while 
they live. They do not die when the form disappears. 
Their characters continue to exist and may reappear upon 
the earth. 

All characters may become reincarnated or reimbodied 
after they have left the form, but if an individual has no 
specific character of its own, the common character belong¬ 
ing to its species or class will be all that, after leaving the 
old body, can enter the new. If an individual has devel¬ 
oped a specific character of its own, that distinguishes it 
from its fellows, that individual character will individually 
survive the dissolution of its form, because the law that 
applies to the whole, or to the class, will also apply to the 
part. A drop of water mixed in a body of water will 
become dispersed in the mass, it may be evaporated and 
condensed again, but it will never again be the same drop ; 
but if a drop of some ethereal oil is mixed with the water, 
and the whole is^evaporated in a retort, it will, after being 
condensed, form again the same individual drop in the 
mass. A high character may lose its individuality during 
life and sink to the common level, but if it has established 
a distinction from others, its individuality will survive the 
death of the form. To accomplish a change of character 


IO 


INDIVIDUALITY, 


an individual form is required, to build up an individual 
form a character must exist. 

If we wish to produce a form we must first decide upon 
its character. A sculptor who would aimlessly cut a stone, 
without making up his mind as to what form he desired to 
produce, would not accomplish anything great. The form 
is a temple of learning for the character, in which the 
latter gains experience by passing through the struggles of 
life. The harder the struggle the faster may the character 
of the individual become developed ; an easy life may 
increase the size of the form, but will leave the character 
weak ; a hard struggle may weaken the form, but will 
strengthen the spirit. Forms grow at the expense of other 
forms, the growth of character induces other characters to 
grow. Forms grow weak when they impart their own sub¬ 
stance to others, characters grow stronger while they 
impart to otheis their strength. Individuals vampyrize 
each other as long as they require material forms, but a 
character that has once been formed finds the source of 
its strength within itself. In the lowest plane, where the 
physical life-impulse acts very slow, an isolated form may 
exist for a considerable time; a stone or a diamond may 
last for ages, because the consuming fire of life is not very 
active in them ; but in forms in which life is very active, 
permanent isolation is not compatible with the existence 
of form. The higher we rise in the scale of life on the 
physical plane, the smaller grows the possibility of endur¬ 
ing isolation. An isolated scrub pine may live surrounded 
by snow and ice on an almost bare rock, where no highly- 
organized life can exist, and an animal life may live a 
comparatively isolated existence in a forest, where a man 
would soon starve to death. Life in forms requires other 
forms to feed upon, characters are self-existing, they 
require the contact with other characters only to try their 
own strength, and as they grow and use their power they 
increase their own fortitude. 

The attributes which constitute character are formless; 
they may be expressed in a form, but after the form is 
dissolved they return to the formless again. Abstract 
ideas, such as “good, evil, wisdom, power, love, hope, 
faith and charity,” etc., have no forms, but they may 
characterize a living being and render it good or bad, wise 
and powerful,” etc. Still such qualities do exist, even if 


SELFISHNESS. 


JIT 


they are not manifest in forms ; forms cannot create their 
own attributes, but they are the expressions of principles 
which exist, and which may or may not become manifested 
in forms. 

The “ spirit,” or character, is the originator of form, the 
astral forces of nature are the architects, and the physical 
plane of nature furnishes the material to render the form 
substantial, and to enable it to come into contact with the 
physical plane. Thought is the great power by which 
forms are called into existence. The thoughts of a person 
during life determine the tendencies of his soul while in 
the subjective state, and these tendencies attract other in¬ 
fluences and bring him again into contact with form. An 
entity, attracted by the illusion of self, may fancy itself to 
be something distinct and isolated from the universal life, 
and look upon all other existences as being distinct from 
the whole. From this illusion arise innumerable other 
illusions. From the sense of self arises the love of self, the 
desire for the continuance of personality, giving rise to 
greed, avarice, envy, jealousy, fear, doubt and sorrow, 
pain and death, and to the whole range of emotions and 
sufferings, which frequently render life miserable, and 
afford no permanent happiness. If a person is miserable 
and can find no happiness in himself, the surest and 
quickest way for him to be contented is to forget his own 
personality, and to live in others, by blending his own 
consciousness with that of some others, or all. By feeling 
with others he will forget his own self, and for the time 
being cease to experience the sufferings produced by the 
illusion of self. A person who lives in a state of isolation 
on the emotional plane will care for nothing else but for 
his own personality. He concentrates all his energies 
into himself, and becomes more and more insignificant 
and spiritually small. Gradually he will sink to lower 
planes of thought, becoming—so to say—more and more 
heavy as his soul becomes dense; aftd if once the down¬ 
ward impulse is given, and not arrested, he will sink lower 
and lower, until his personality, at the death of the form, 
disappears in the vortex and he ceases to exist as a man in 
human form, having already during life ceased to exist as 
a man in a human character. When his physical body is 
decayed and the “ magnetic body” dispersed, the remnant 
of his soul elements may still continue to exist. Its move- 


112 


EMOTIONS. 


merits will be guided by its controlling emotions, it will 
not go whither it chooses, for having no inteligence it can 
make no choice ; but it will go whither it is attracted by its 
instincts, until its energies are exhausted and it ceases to 
exist as a form. 

Thus the animal elements of a man who was during his 
life a great drunkard, may after his death be attracted to 
another living drunkard and be drawn to a grog-shop ; 
those of a lewd person seek comfort in a brothel, those of 
an avaricious person stand guard over his buried treasures, 
etc., etc.; and all such remnants may have a certain 
amount of consciousness and memory left, and may be 
galvanized back temporarily into a living state by coming 
in contact with a medium. Thus endless varieties of 
spooks, ghosts, vampires, incubi, succubi, etc., may come 
into existence, and there are innumerable accounts given 
in books on magic, occultism and spiritualism, to illustrate 
such facts. 

As on the physical plane, so on the astral plane, isolation 
produces starvation. An emotion to be kept alive must 
be fed by corresponding emotions, else it will devour its 
possessor. A person who loves another person or object 
intensely, and cannot gain the object of his desire, must 
transfer his love upon some other object, or he may perish 
in the attempt to suppress it. If the love is transferred to 
a higher ideal it will render man happy ; if it is transferred 
to a lower one dissatisfaction may be the result. Stored- 
up anger will find some object upon which to spend its 
fury, else it may produce an explosion destructive to its 
possessor; tranquility follows a storm. The “ black 
magician ” who attempts to kill or injure another person 
by the intensity of his hatred, projected towards that per¬ 
son, may be killed or injured by the intensity of the force 
he has created, and which—if it is not sufficiently strong 
to effect his object—will react upon himself. Accumulated 
energy cannot be annihilated, it must be transferred to 
other forms, or be transformed into other modes of motion ; 
it cannot remain forever inactive and yet continue to 
exist. It is useless to attempt to resist a passion which 
we cannot control. If its accumulating energy is not led 
into other channels it will grow until it becomes stronger 
than will and stronger than reason. To control it, it 
should be led into another and higher channel. Thus a 


LUNATICS. 


n 3 


love for something vulgar may be changed by turning it 
into a love for something high, and vice may be turned 
into virtue by changing its aim. Passion is blind, it goes 
where it is led to, and reason is a safer guide for it than 
the instinct. Love for a form disappears with the death of 
the form, or soon after; love of character remains even 
after the form in which that character was embodied 
ceased to exist. 

The ancients said that Nature suffers no vacuum. We 
cannot destroy or annihilate a passion. If it is driven 
away another elemental influence will take its place. We 
should therefore not attempt to destroy the low without 
putting something in its place ; but we should displace 
the low by the high ; vice by virtue, and superstition by 
knowledge. 

There are some persons who live in perfect isolation on 
the intellectual plane. They are such whose thoughts are 
entirely absorbed by intellectual labors, having no time 
or inclination to attend to the claims of their spirit. 
They are—so to say—living continually in the cupola of 
their temples, the head, while their hearts are made to 
starve and become petrified. They concentrate all their 
intellectual forces into their brains, and may become very 
learned in regard to the small details of life on this planet, 
but while they concentrate their attention upon the small, 
they often lose their capacity to enter into harmony with 
the whole. Seen from the standpoint of eternal truth, 
they are lunatics, living in the moonshine of their own 
imagination, dawdling away their life among the realm of 
illusions and perishing form and neglecting that which alone 
is lasting and permanent. They constitute to a great extent, 
the ‘‘materialists,” “sceptics,” and ‘’ rationalists ” of our 
age. They throw away their birthright to immortality by 
arguing themselves into a belief in its impossibility, they 
may become criminals “ for the sake of science,” disregard¬ 
ing the laws of humanity; their astral corpses will 
continue to exist for a while after the death of their physical 
forms, until the intellectual power active therein is exhaust¬ 
ed, but their spiritual aspirations having already deserted 
them during their life, there will be nothing left of them in 
the end to survive the dissolution of the soul. 

All forms that nature produces are the products of 
universal life expressing itself in forms. They are manifes- 


LIFE TRANSFER. 


114 

tations of the One in Three , but as such they do not 
possess any life of their own. There still remains the un¬ 
manifested One , which must become active in the form if 
the form is to live. The Three rendered alive through the 
One, produces the Four, and Four is therefore the number 
of perfection. It represents the square, by means of 
which the Universe is constructed, and which finds its 
symbolic expression in the life-giving influences meeting 
from the four cardinal points, North, South, East and 
West. 

Life is universally present in nature, it is contained in 
every particle of matter, and only when the last particle of 
life is departed from a form the form ceases to exist. It 
may remain for centuries inactive in a form, but when it 
begins to manifest itself, motion appears in the form, and 
the higher the form is developed the higher may be the 
activity of its life. Life in a stone does not appear to exist, 
and yet without life there would be no cohesion of its 
atoms. If the life-principle were extracted from a mineral 
its form would be annihilated. A seed taken from the 
tomb of an Egyptian mummy began to germinate and 
grow after it was planted in the earth, having kept its life- 
principle during a sleep of many centuries. If the 
activity of animal life could be correspondingly arrested, 
an animal or a man might prolong individual existence to 
an indefinite period. Stones may live from the beginning 
of a Manvantara unto its end ; some forms reach a very 
old age, but if the life impulse is once given it is difficult— 
if not impossible—to arrest it. 

Life may be transferred from one form upon another, 
and the power by which it may be transferred is the power 
of Love, because Love,Will and Life are essentially the same 
power, or different aspects of one, in the same sense as heat 
and light are modifications of motion. The power of hate 
may kill and the power of love has been known to call the 
apparently dead back to life. Love is a restoration of 
life and health, more powerful than all the drugs of the 
Pharmacopoeia, and it is the universal panacea which the 
true physician applies. 

Thus the sun is continually transferring his life, his will 
and his love to this globe without losing anything thereby. 
There is no actual loss ; but merely a setting in motion of 
vibrations of life and light in the body of our planet by 


THE WILL-CURE ,. 


»5 

the central will-fire at the centre of our system, the sun. 
There are thousands of people sick, because the sun in 
them is grown cold ; they cannot make up their minds to 
be well; they cannot form that firm resolution, which is 
neceesary to set the will at their own centre into motion, 
so that its vibrations would induce life and health in all 
parts of their system. Their disease is Infidelity . They 
are full of doubt, uncertain whether they ought to live or 
to die, and while we bemoan their miserable condition, 
they have neither the courage nor the will to be well, and 
instead of curing themselves, they hire a doctor to amuse 
them and to enable them to remain sick. 

Every disease, without any exception, is in the first 
instance caused, directly or indirectly, by a weak or 
perverted will or a disordered imagination ; nor could it 
be otherwise, because man himself and the world wherein 
he lives is a product of will and imagination, and there is 
nothing else but these two factors to act upon. The more 
external the disease or the accident is, the more remote is 
it from these original causes; but even an external 
accident is due to a disharmony existing between the will 
of subject and object, either consciously or unconsciously 
expressed. The origin of the majority of internal diseases 
can be traced to some emotion of the will or to some in¬ 
harmonious thought, to some irregular desire or some state 
of the mind, conceived either by the patient himself, or 
impressed upon him by another. 

All things and all states are expressions of will and 
thought. People get sick, because they unconsciously 
will to be sick and this unconscious action of the will is 
induced by the imagination. If being sick were looked 
upon as a disgrace and punished by the law, there would be 
far less sick people in the world. The more the comforts 
for the sick are increased the more will there be people 
who need them. Many a man who hires a physician for 
his family thereby introduces the plague into his house. 
With the issuing of each diploma that creates a new doctor, 
a new herd of infection for the community is created, 
because the very sight of a doctor makes one think of 
disease and may cause disease, while there are thousands 
of sick persons that would be well to-day if they had never 
found it to be convenient to be sick. 

What then is the use of our modern system of quackery 


IRA VELS OF THE LIFE PRINCIPLE . 


116 

and dosing with medicine, be it legally or illegally done, 
if the cause of disease is not in the body, but in the will 
and the thought of the patient ? When will humanity arrive 
at an understanding of the eternal truth, that he who looks 
for redemption in external things is doomed to disappoint¬ 
ment, while man’s only true friend and redeemer is the 
God whom he carries within himself, nor can any man give 
to another the life, the truth or the Christ, but it is the life, 
the light and the truth itself giving itself to a man 
through the instrumentality of those that have been 
regenerated in the life and light of the spirit of truth. A 
physician or a preacher, having no faith in the power of 
good, and no self-consciousness of the presence of God 
within themselves, but are full of conceit in regard to their 
own learning and intellectual accomplishment, can cure 
neither the ills of the body nor those of the souls, they 
can only create illusions and act upon the imagination of 
the patient, but not infuse life into his will. They are not 
physicians, but clowns and reciters of stories which they 
themselves do not believe. 

The true life-giving power rests in the source of all 
Good. “ In him is life, and the life is the light of men.” * 
Through its influence the elements composing lower forms 
of existence are gradually raised into higher states. It is 
everywhere present, and manifests itself wherever a form 
is capable to respond to its vibrations. It cannot be 
found by vivisection nor by chemical analysis, and modern 
scientific books say nothing about it ; yet it is an element 
in which and through which we all live, and if it were 
withdrawn from us for a single moment we would be 
immediately annihilated. 

To be blind to the existence of the universal source of 
all good, is to be blind to the fact that is apparent every¬ 
where, that grasses and trees, animals and men, live and 
grow. Without the power of life nothing living could 
come into existence. Truly the children speak a great 
truth when they say that “ God made the grass grow ; ” 
but the learned, who cannot conceive of anything that 
transcends their sensual perception, cannot rise to the 
sublime conception of a universal, supreme, and therefore 
divine power. Our Materialistic philosophers desire to 


St. John i. 4 



GROWTH. 


Ii7 

abolish their “ God ;” and it is to be hoped that they will 
succeed, for the god of which they conceive is impotent. 
The supreme power of life in the universe is beyond com 
ception, this they cannot abolish; an attempt to destroy 
it would have to begin with their own annihilation. 

Life is a manifestation of power, a function of the un¬ 
imaginable cause of all existence. It must be a substan¬ 
tial principle, else it could not exist, because no activity 
can take place without substance. It has no forms, but is 
manifested in forms ; it continually advances from lower 
to higher forms, and as it advances the character of forms 
advances with it. The building of the “ Temple of 
Solomon” goes on unceasingly. Invisibly act the elements 
of nature, the master builders of the universe. Life 
inhabits a form, and when the form is decayed it gathers 
the elements and builds itself a new house. A rock, 
exposed to the action of wind and rain, begins to decay 
on its surface, the elements gather again and appear in a 
new form. Minute plants and mosses grow on the surface, 
living and dying and being reborn, until the soil accumu¬ 
lates and higher forms come into existence. Centuries 
may pass away before this part of the work is completed ; 
but finally grasses will grow, and the life that was formally 
dormant in a rock now manifests itself in forms capable to 
enter the animal kingdom. A worm may eat a plant, and 
the life of the plant becomes active and conscious in a 
worm ; a bird may eat the worm, and the life that was 
chained to a form crawling in darkness and filth now 
partakes of the joys of an inhabitant of the air. At each 
step on the ladder of progression life acquires new names 
to manifest its activity, and the death of its previous form 
enables it to step into a higher one. The principle of life 
is not changed thereby, nor is the sun changed when he 
sends his rays upon the earth. A piece of black iron is 
rendered luminous, if exposed to heat, but remains iron 
for all that. Not the iron produces the light nor the form 
the life, but the former manifest themselves according to 
the qualites of the latter. 

Forms are nothing but symbols of life, and the higher 
the life expresses itself the higher will be the form. An 
acorn is an insignificant thing compared with the oak, but 
it has a character, and through the magic action of life it 
may develop into an oak The germ of its individual life 


ELIXIR OF LIFE. 


118 

is incarnated in the acorn, and forms the point of attrac¬ 
tion for the universal principle of life. Its character is 
already formed, and if it grows it can become nothing else 
but an oak. Buried in the earth it may grow and develop 
from a low into a higher state through the influence of the 
highest, because the principle of life is contained in it. 
But however great its potency for growth may be, still it 
cannot germinate without the life-giving influence of the 
universal fountain of life reaching it through the power of 
the sun, and the sun could not make it grow unless the 
principle of life were contained in the germ. 

The rays of the sun penetrate from their airy regions to 
the earth; their light cannot enter the solid earth,which pro¬ 
tects the tender seed or a plant from the fiery rays, whose 
activity might destroy its inherent vitality. But the seed 
is touched by the heat that radiates into the earth, and a 
special mode of life manifests itself in the seed. This 
life is not a new creation, but it is The Absolute becoming 
manifest in a form. The seed begins to sprout, and the 
germ struggles towards the source of the life-giving 
influence, and strives towards the light. The roots have 
no desire for light, they only crave for nutriment, which 
they find in the dark caverns of matter. They penetrate 
deeper into the earth, and may even absorb the activity of 
the higher parts of the plant. But if the latter belongs to 
a species whose character it is to grow towards the light, 
its nobler portions will enter its sphere, and may ultimate¬ 
ly bear flowers and fruits. 

The soul of man being buried in matter, perceives 
instinctively the life-giving influence of the supreme spirit¬ 
ual sun, while at the same time it is attracted by matter. 
If man’s whole attention is attracted to the claims of his 
body, if all his aspirations and desires are directed to 
satisfy the desire of his material form, he will himself remain 
a thing of earth, incapable to become conscious of the 
existence of Light. But if he strives for Light, and opens 
his soul to its divine influence, he will enter its sphere and 
become conscious of its existence. A time will arrive 
when matter will lose its attractions for him, and as the 
odor of the flower can exist after the flower and the roots 
from which the latter drew its nutriment have ceased to live, 
so will the character of that man, even after his physical 
body has continued to exist, consciously survive, and 


ELIXIR OF LIFE. 


119 

having followed the attraction of the immortal law, become 
himself one with the law, and be rendered immortal. 

The true Elixir of life can only be found at the eternal 
fountain of life. It springs from the seventh principle, 
manifesting itself as spiritual power in the sixth and shed¬ 
ding its light down in the fifth, illuminating the mind. In 
the fifth it is manifest as the intellectual power in man, 
radiating down into the fourth and controlling by the 
power of Reason the turbulent elements of the latter. In 
the fourth it creates desires, calling forth life and instincts 
in the lower triad, and thereby enabling the forms to draw 
the elements which they need from the storehouse of 
nature. It forever calls men to life by the voice of truth, 
whose echo is the power of intuition crying in the wilder¬ 
ness of our hearts, baptizing the souls with the water of 
hope, and pointing out to them the true spirit which, 
coming to consciousness in their heart, may baptize them 
with fire and knowledge, and initiate them into the eternal 
life. 



CHAPTER V. 

HARMONY. 

“ Let no one enter here who is not well versed in mathematics and 
music. ”— Pythagoras , 

“To listen to the music of the spheres” is a poetical 
expression, but it expresses a great truth; because the 
Universe is filled with harmony, and a soul who is in 
full harmony with the soul of the universe may listen to 
that music and undesrtand it. The world as well as man 
resemble musical instruments, in which every string should 
be in perfect order, so that no discordant notes may be 
sounded. We may look upon matter on the physical 
plane as a state of low vibration and upon spirit as the 
highest vibration of life, and between the two poles are 
the intermediary principles constituting the grand octave 
called Man. 

A more exact study of the laws of harmony will undoubt¬ 
edly give us a deeper insight into the laws which govern 
the functions of the principles of which Nature and man 
are composed. Woman is the image of Man, representing 
Man's beauty and will, while the male part of humanity 
is to represent reason and strength, but neither can 
continue to exist without the other, and neither a male nor 
a female being is perfect. Only that being is perfect in 
which the male and female elements are united. 

That which saves the male portions of mankind from 
becoming brutes is the remnants of the female principle, 
still left in Adam when Eve was created out of “ one of 




THE ETERNAL VIRGIN. 


121 


his ribs.” That which constitutes the true woman is the 
eternal divine female principle, the eternal virgin, in her. 
That which brings woman near to the semi-animal male and 
which makes her discernible to him, is the male elements con¬ 
tained in her human organization. A man without any female 
elements in him would be a devil, a woman without any 
male elements would be an angel, but could not live upon 
a gross material planet such as the earth. 

The Moll accord is the harmonious counterpart of the 
Dur accord ; but it has been proved that the existence of 
a family of w^//-accords, existing independently of dtir- 
accords, and running in parallel lines with the latter, is an 
impossibility. The most beautiful sound is not a single 
sound, but an accord of three. Such an accord is like a 
mental conception, which—for the purpose of realizing its 
existence as a unity—has to pass through three phases of 
consciousness; viz : i. that of being one with itself; 2. 
that of being different from itself; and 3. that of con¬ 
ceiving that these two states are only one. 

Nature is the product of a cause, and everything in 
nature is ruled by the law of cause and effect. There can 
be no arbitrary ruler in the universe, and even if there 
were such a ruler, his decisions would be the effects of the 
action of his mind, and the actions of his mind would be 
determined by pre-existing causes, and he would therefore 
be subject to law. A being that is not subject to law is 
a,n unimaginable monster that cannot exist, because all 
beings come into existence through the law of cause and 
effect, and nothing can be without having come into 
existence ; only the eternal law itself, which is no-thing, 
self-existent, and absolute. 

Here it might be objected, that the law could not exist, 
if there was not a cause of the law, in other words, a law¬ 
giver ; and such would be the case, if we had to deal with 
arbitrary laws; but the eternal law of cause and effect 
requires no law-giver; because it is eternal and therefore 
self-existent. Each being is subject to that law, because 
each is a product of it. The law of cause and effect calls all 
beings into existence ; but the law itself is not a being, and 
if man enters the state of Nirvana , he ceases to be subject 
to the law; because as he is then one with the law, he is 
the law, and cannot be subject to any other law but him¬ 
self, and has ceased to be a “ being ." 


122 


KARMA . 


Man is a being and exists in the world, having come 
into existence according to the law of cause and effect. 
The form and quality of his body depend on the physical 
conditions under which he was born; the state of his soul 
depends on the astral influences that concentrated their 
power upon him in consequence of his affinity; his 
character depends on the causes created during his 
previous existence, and these causes constitute his Karma. 
of which he himself is the creator. Man is himself a 
product of the law of cause and effect, and in all depart¬ 
ments of nature the effects produced are always in exact 
proportion to the causes that produced them. If we knew 
the causes well, we could easily calculate their effects. 
Each thought, each word, each act creates a cause, which 
acts directly on the plane to which it belongs, creating 
there new causes, which react again upon the other planes.* 
A thought is a mental state that may be expressed in a 
word, and the word may be made effective by an act. An 
act is the expression (the word) of a thought. Every form 
in nature has a threefold constitution, every symbol a three¬ 
fold meaning, every perfect act is a trinity. To perform 
an action three factors are necessary : the actor, the act, 
and the object acted on. To constitute a complete act 
three factors again are required : the motive, the will, and 
the performance. A motive or thought which finds no 
expression in an act will have no direct result on the phy¬ 
sical plane, but it may cause great emotion in the sphere of 
mind, and these may again react on the physical plane. 
The best intention will produce no visible effect unless it 
is put into execution; but intentions produce certain men¬ 
tal states, that may be productive of actions at some time 
in the future. The performance of an act will have an 
effect, no matter whether it was premeditated or not, but 
an act without a motive will not directly affect the planes 
of thought. Such an act is the result of insanity, and 
imposes no moral responsibility upon the performer, but it 
will, nevertheless, have its effects on the physical plane 
that may react upon the mind. 


• Paracelsus explains how the morbid imagination of man may create 
states in the mental atmosphere which poison the imagination of nature, 
and how by a reaction of the Universal Soul upon the soul of man, 
epidemic diseases come into existence. 



MICROCOSMOS AND MACROCOSMOS. 


'23 


tfrom the causes created on the physical, astral, and 
spiritual planes innumerable combinations of effects come 
into existence, creating new causes, that are again followed 
by effects, and every force that is put into action on either 
plane continues to act until it is exhausted by transforma¬ 
tions into other modes of action, when its vibrations will 
be changed ; to others, and the previous effects will cease 
to exist. 

It is highly interesting to study the actions of the law of 
cause and effect on the various planes of existence. By 
the threefold action of that law, as thought , will , and 
performance , on the physical, emotional, intellectual, and 
spiritual planes, a great many varieties ensue which give 
rise to endless modifications and varieties, and again 
produce innumerable secondary causes, which again pro¬ 
duce effects. For instance, a good act performed on the 
physical plane with an evil thought, or an evil act performed 
with a good motive, or a good act with a good motive, or 
an evil act with an evil thought, produces certain effects 
upon one plane, while the motive affects another plane, and 
they both react upon higher planes, and there results are 
produced which react again upon the lower planes, and at 
last the actions of the law of Karma will become so com¬ 
plicated, that it is impossible to follow it into its details. 
Nor is it necessary that we should do so; for we should 
not do good as a matter of speculation and for the purpose 
of acquiring good Karma; but we should do good, 
because we love good on account of its goodness. 

Man is not a being whose existence is separated from 
nature, but an integral part thereof. Heat and cold, 
sunshine and storms on the physical plane, affect his 
body, the elemental forces of nature act upon his soul, and 
the influence of the universal spirit radiates to his centre. 
Likewise man reacts upon the whole. By his physical 
labor he changes the face of the Earth, acting sometimes 
as a creator and at other times as a destroyer of forms; 
his emotions produce currents in the soul of the world that 
give rise to new causes in the invisible realm, which again 
react upon the physical plane. His imagination may 
create thought-germs, that may in the course of time find 
expression in physical forms, his passions may give rise, to 
epidemic diseases,* his collective and accumulative 


• Paracelsus: “ De Origine Morborum Invisibilium.” 



124 


DISHARMONIES . 


energies lead to convulsions in nature, and if harmony 
is restored in the universal Man, nature will be restored to 
harmony. 

The discords in nature are produced by imperfect man. 
Having tasted of the tree of knowledge, he has learned to 
oppose his individual will to the order existing in nature, 
and he will continue to suffer the consequences of his sins 
until he recognizes the superiority of the All to that of the 
individual, and uniting his will with that of the whole, ends 
the conflict of separate interests, and thereby restores the 
unity and harmony of the whole. 

Originally eternal nature was an harmonious whole, in 
which discords were created by a separation of interests 
among its constituents and an opposition of their individual 
wills to the will of the whole. In the beginning the 
universal will, radiating from the centre, became—so to 
say—reversed in the action of its surface rays, and there¬ 
by the sphere of illusions came into existence at the 
periphery sphere representing the visible world. But at 
the centre there still exists the immeasurable power of the 
uniform law, where light penetrates through the clouds that 
surround the spiritual sun. These clouds constitute the 
world of illusions, and the action of this law can be per¬ 
ceived in every form of activity in all departments of 
nature. 

Plato wrote over the door of his academy: “ Let no 
one enter here unless he is well versed in mathematics; ” 
and Pythagoras demanded the additional knowledge of 
music. They meant to say that he who wishes to investi¬ 
gate the hidden mysteries of nature must be able to draw 
logical conclusions from his observations and attune his 
soul to the divine harmonies of the universe. 

Nature is still a Unity, and every part of it stands in a 
certain definite relation to the whole; nothing is left to 
chance. Everything has its number, measure, and weight, 
and there is nothing in nature which is not ruled by 
mathematical laws. Suns and stars have their periodical 
revolutions. The molecules of bodies combine in certain 
proportions, known to chemistry, and in all events on the 
physical plane as well as in the realm of the emotions a 
certain regularity and periodicity has been observed. 
There are regular hours for the appearance of day and 
night, fixed intervals for spring and summer, autumn and 


MAGIC NUMBERS. 


12 S 

winter, for ebbs and tides in the ocean and in the waters 
constituting the soul. The physiological and anatomical 
changes in animal forms occur at fixed periods, and even 
the events of life take place according to certain occult 
laws; because, although man’s actions seem to be free, yet 
his actions are caused by his will, and his will is influenced 
by his mental states, which are again the effects of still 
deeper causes that find their origin in the supreme law. 

The followers of Pythagoras knew every process in 
nature to be regulated by certain numbers, which are as 
follows : 


3 

9 

15 

45 

4 

16 

34 

136 

5 

25 

6 5 

325 

6 

36 

hi 

666 

7 

49 

T 75 

1225 

8 

64 

260 

2080 

9 

81 

369 

332 i 


This table represents a succession of numbers, which are 
obtained by the construction of Tetragrams or magic 
squares , and it was believed that by the use of these 
numbers every effect could be calculated if the original 
number referring to the cause were known. If everything 
has a certain number of vibrations, and if these vibrations 
increase or diminish at a certain ratio and in regular 
periods, a knowledge of these numbers will enable us to 
predict a future event. 

Every person has a certain number that expresses his 
character, and if we know that number, we may, by the 
use of the magic squares, calculate certain periodical 
changes in his mental and emotional states, which may 
induce him to make certain changes in his outward con¬ 
ditions, and in this way we may, perhaps, calculate 
approximately the time when some important changes may 
take place in his career. But as the numbers of men are 
known only to the enlightened, who do not require such 
calculations, these magic squares are at present of little 
practical value, and of none whatever for the purpose of 
“fortune-telling,” or to satisfy idle curiosity in regard to 
future events. 

This law of periodicity is, however, an universal law, 
and an attention to it may lead to some important dis- 


126 


SEVEN. 


coveries. Its actions have long ago been known to exist 
in the vibrations producing light and sound, and it has 
recently been recognized in chemistry* * by experiments 
tending to prove that all so-called simple elements are only 
various states of vibrations of one primordial element, 
manifesting itself in seven principal modes of action, each 
of which may be sub-divided into seven again. The differ¬ 
ence which exists between so-called single substances 
appears, therefore, to be no difference of substance or 
matter, but only a difference of the function of matter or 
in the ratio of its atomic vibration. 

The occultists of all ages have looked upon the Seven 
as being a sacred number. The religious books of the 
East speak of seven emanations of Parabrahm; and there 
is a sufficient number of passages in the Apocalypse and in 
other parts of the Bible to make it appear that the relation 
which this mysterious number bears to the construction of 
the universe has not escaped the attention of the Christian 
Fathers. 

The ancient philosophers believed that there were seven 
planets in our solar system, and modern scientists base 
their claims of their superiority over the ancient astrono¬ 
mers upon the fact that they have discovered more planets 
and asteroids than were known in ancient times. 

Eternal truths which are cognizable to the spiritual per¬ 
ception of the illuminated of to-day must be the same that 
were seen by seers thousands of years ago, because such 
truths do not change, neither can a true spiritual perception 
make any mistakes. It is, therefore, probable that if the 
exoteric doctrines of the ancients spoke of seven planets, 
the esoteric meaning was that there existed six planetary 
spheres, which, including the central sphere, produce seven. 
According to the prevailing opinion in regard to the nebular 
theory, our planetary system has been evolved from the 
original substance (fire-mist) that constituted the body of 
the sun, forming an immense sphere, extending beyond the 
orbit of Neptune. If we imagine in a sphere a centrifugal 
force radiating from the centre towards the periphery, and 
a centripetal force acting towards the centre, there will be 
a point between the centre and the periphery where the 

- % 

* L. B. Hellenbach: “ Die Magie der Zahlem.” 



THE PLANETS. 


127 


two opposing forces meet. At that point their straight 
motions will either counteract each other and there will be 
a stand-still, or—what is more probable—the radial force 
will be broken and transformed into a revolving motion 
around a new centre formed at the place of contact. In 
such a case there would be not less than six bodies to 
enclose the seventh on all sides. 

But as to the number of corporeal planetary bodies, 
visible on the sky, this is a matter belonging to the 
investigation of mundane astronomy. Occult science 
deals with principles ; the ultimate outcome of the expres¬ 
sions of these principles in corporeal forms is a matter of 
secondary importance. 

The number Seven represents the scale of nature, it is 
represented in all departments of natuie, from the radiant 
sun, whose light is broken by a dewdrop into the seven 
colors of the rainbow, down to the snowflake crystalizing 
in six-pointed stars around the invisible centre. The law 
of seven has been found to rule in the development and 
growth of vegetable and animal organisms, in the consti¬ 
tution of the Universe, and in the constitution of Man. 
Seven is the rule by which the totality of existence is 
measured, but Five is the number of Harmony. If the 
fifth note in the musical scale is in accord with the first 
and the third, harmony will be the result. There are 
other accords which are harmonious, but the most perfect 
accord is caused by the harmony of the first, the third, and 
the fifth. The sounds may be harmonious, but to attain a 
perfect accord a third one is required. The same law 
rules in the constitution of Man. If his body (his first 
principle) is in accord with his instincts (the third), he 
may experience pleasant sensations, but full harmony and 
happiness is only attained when his fifth principle (his 
intelligence) fully assents in the union of the first and the 
third. Other parallels may be drawn between the musical 
scale and the scale of principles in man, and it will be 
found that both have their accords in moll and in dur that 
correspond to each other. Each man’s life is a symphony, 
in which either harmonious or discordant tunes may pre¬ 
vail. 

The power by which harmony is produced is the power 
of Love. Love produces harmony, hate causes discord. 
Love is the tendency of the disunited parts of one 


128 


LOVE . 


principle to unite again into one. This tendency pre¬ 
supposes the power of mutual recognition, recognition is 
a manifestation of consciousness, consciousness is a mani¬ 
festation of life. Life, Love, Consciousness, Harmony, are 
essentially one, the opposite of which is discord and death. 
Why do some notes, if sounded together, produce harmony, 
if not on account of the similarity of the elements that 
compose them coming to the consciousness of our own 
mind ? Mutual recognition among friends causes joy, and 
joy means harmony, happiness, and content. 

If two or more notes of exactly the same kind are 
sounded together, they produce neither harmony nor dis¬ 
cord, they simply increase their own strength. They are 
already one, and no relation exists between them; but if 
different notes are struck, each containing an element con¬ 
tained in the other, each sees its own counterpart repre¬ 
sented in the mirror held by the other, and this recognition 
is joy. If we listen to beautiful music the air seems filled 
with life. If the principle of harmony exists within our¬ 
selves we may recognize it in the music, and it becomes 
alive in our soul. A discordant being may listen to the 
most beautiful music and be left cold, because there is no 
harmony within his own soul. 

If a principle becomes conscious of its own existence 
in another form, and recognizes its beauty in that form in 
its purity, and unalloyed by any adulteration, perfect har¬ 
mony is the result. If two or more things contain the 
same element, these elements are justly adapted to each 
other, and seek to unite, because they are constituted alike ; 
they vibrate together as one. This tendency to unite 
creates Love , which manifests itself on all planes of exist¬ 
ence. The planets are attracted to the sun and to each 
other, because they all contain the same elements, seeking 
to reunite, and the power of gravitation is nothing else 
but the power of love. Man is attracted to woman and 
woman to man, because they perceive in each other the 
elements of their own highest ideal, and the more their 
common ideal becomes manifest in each, the more will 
they love each other and be fully contented. Man and 
woman can only truly love each other if they are both 
either consciously or unconsciously attracted by the same 
ideal. This ideal may be high or low, but the higher it is 
the more permanent will it be, and the greater will be their 
mutual happiness. 


UNITY OF PRINCIPLE. 


129 


In each human being exist certain elements which are 
identical with those existing in all other human beings, and 
therefore one with the latter. Consequently, individual 
man only appears to be a separate being; while in fact the 
whole of humanity is a unity and one; it is merely the 
outward expression of the Universal Man, which is mani¬ 
fest in many separate human forms. The dirtiest beggar 
in the street, the most vicious criminal, as well as the 
greatest king or queen in the world, is myself and yourself, 
for there is no distinction between one human being and 
another in the fundamental principle which constitutes a 
human being, and which is the Utiiversal Man, the ter¬ 
restrial Adam and the celestial Christ. 

In other words : Mankmd is only one, but it appears 
in many millions of various masks, and sometimes with 
very inhuman habits, because the mask which the forms 
wear hinders their free evolutions. This mask is the 
personality of each man, the instrument through which 
Adam acts, and which is full of imperfections. He, in 
whom the terrestrial Adam has become the celestial Adam, 
the Christ, sees in every man and woman not only his 
brother or sister, but his own self. A person who injures 
another, injures himself, for each man constitutes a power 
which acts upon humanity, and the good or evil he does 
will return to himself. 

A man who attempts to fall in love with himself, or, 
with other words, to find in his person his own highest 
ideal, will never succeed in being contented and harmon¬ 
ious. A man who seeks to recognize himself as his own 
highest ideal becomes self-centred and vain. His love, 
instead of expanding to the periphery of his sphere, will 
act from its periphery to the centre, and he will become 
spiritually smaller every day. But the man or the woman 
who seeks the realization of their own ideal in the object 
of their love, will, if they find it, recognize it as their own 
self which they always possessed, although they were not 
aware of its possession until they found it in another form. 
He who possesses the truth recognizes it wherever he 
finds it in others, but he who does not possess it cannot 
recognize it. Our modern age often rejects the highest 
truths unless they bear the stamp of man-created authority: 
but the wise recognize the truth by its own light. 

Light is darkness unless it is reflected by matter Light 


* 3 ° 


ATTRACTION. 


cannot illuminate itself, but it illuminates the darkness, and 
consequently the existence of light depends on the exist¬ 
ence of matter. Love without an object cannot exist 
relatively. A person in love with himself loves nothing. 
Love, attached to nothing, exists in the Absolute. A love 
being attached to a high object is high, and if it is attached 
to a low object it is low, as life in a low form is low, and 
in a high form high; because love, and life, and harmony 
are the functions and attributes of one and the same 
principle in nature, they are only different aspects of one 
universal power. Where love exists there is life, and no 
life can endure without love, and the more the love expands 
over all, the more will the living spiritual power of man 
extend. The more love is concentrated upon a single 
object, the stronger will it be in that direction and infuse 
love and life in that object, and the more it is divided 
among different objects, the more will its power be dis¬ 
persed. 

Love, to be strong, must be pure and unalloyed with 
selfish considerations. If we love a thing on account of 
the use we can make of it, we do not in reality love that 
thing, but ourselves. Pure love has only the well-being of 
its object in view, it does not calculate profits, and is not 
afraid of disadvantages that may grow out of its love. The 
intellect calculates, but love follows the law of attraction. 

Impure love is no love at all, it is merely attraction. It 
is weak, and does not enter into its object; it may cause a 
ruffle on the soul of another, but does not penetrate to the 
centre. Pure love penetrates and cannot be resisted, 
unless it is opposed by another love of equal strength, but 
streaming in another direction. The most potent love 
potion a person can give to another is to love that person 
without any selfish object in view. Such pure love will 
infuse itself into the soul of the beloved and call forth 
corresponding vibrations of love, because one mode of 
activity gives rise to similar modes, according to the uni¬ 
versal law of induction. 

This is undoubtedly true, provided that the love-germs 
in the soul of the beloved correspond in quality to those 
of the lover and are reached by the latter. The strongest 
sunshine cannot cause any plants to grow in a soil in 
which the seeds of the latter are too deeply imbedded to 
be reached by the heat of the sun, or too much obstructed 


LOVE CHARMS. 


* 3 * 

by weeds to grow. Likewise the heart is the soil where 
psychic germs of all kinds are imbedded, ready to unfold, 
if accessible, to the magic power of love. 

If you wish to progress on the road to perfection, take 
lessons in love. Learn to love the highest, and you will 
be attracted by it. Seek in every man those qualities 
which appear to be high, and cover his mistakes by charity 
and love. If you speak ill of another you speak ill of 
yourself, because he who prominently notices the faults 
of another must have the elements of those faults in him¬ 
self. A vain person is repulsed by the vanity of another, 
a liar expects from others the truth, a thief does not wish 
to have his own property taken away. Virtues attract 
each other, producing harmony, but vices repulse each 
other, and discord is the result. 

Each man is a mirror in which every other man may 
see his own image reflected, either as he is or as he may 
become in the future, for in every human soul exist the 
same elements, although in different states of development, 
and their development often depends on external conditions 
over which man has but little control. 

An emotion suppressed and forced back on itself may 
become diseased and its direction perverted. A love 
which is neither transformed nor fulfilled, but harbored in 
the heart, creates phantoms and hallucinations just as 
stagnant water develops animal life. A love for a high 
ideal, which, instead of reaching up to the sphere of that 
ideal, seeks for it in lower spheres, will languish and starve 
or be attracted to lower ideals ; but, if love meets its cor¬ 
responding love, harmony will be the result. 

Love is the most necessary element for the continuance 
of life ; there is no life without love, and if man were to 
cease to love life he would cease to live. A love for a 
higher life will lead men to a higher condition, a love for a 
lower state will drag them down to a low. It often happens 
that if a person’s love for a high ideal does not meet the 
object which it desires, it transfers its love upon something 
that is low. Old females without any offspring often trans¬ 
fer their parental affection upon some favorite cat or 
dog, and there are men who buy the semblance of love 
when no genuine love can be had. 

Whenever a lower vibration is not entirely out of harmony 
with a higher one, the higher vibration may accelerate the 


132 


INDUCTION. 


action of the lower one and bring it up to its own level, in 
the same manner as a bar of iron, surrounded by an 
insulated electric wire, may have electricity induced in it, 
and through a long-continued and powerful action of the 
higher vibrations upon the lower ones even the involuntary 
actions of the body, such as the movements of the heart, 
may become subject to individual will. Two strings of a 
musical instrument which sound not entirely out of har¬ 
mony, may, by being sounded together for a certain length 
of time, at last become harmonious ; a man living in more 
refined society, which is not too far above his moral or 
intellectual level, will become more refined, servants will 
ape their masters, and animals take some of the lower 
characteristics of those that attend to them, and friends 
or married couples being continually in each other’s com¬ 
pany may finally resemble each other to a certain extent. 

If the respective rates of the vibrations of two substances 
are entirely out of harmony, they may repel each other, 
and abnormal activity or excitement follows. The animal 
body, for instance, can be exposed without danger to a 
comparatively high degree of heat, if the temperature is 
gradually raised ; while an even lower degree of heat may 
be very injurious if applied suddenly. It is not for fancied 
reasons that the occultist abstains from Alcohol and from 
animal food. The elements of such substances are in a high 
state of activity, and by coming into contact with the 
elements of the blood, they stimulate them and throw them 
into an abnormal state of vibration, giving rise to emotions 
on the astral plane, which may in their turn affect the 
higher principles in man in an undesirable manner. The 
same is the case with other substances, whose odic emana¬ 
tions are red, while those emitting blue auras are of a 
different character; but even the highest elements draw 
their nourishment indirectly from the lowest ones, and the 
old saying that “ a sound mind needs a sound body to 
develop in ” is not a mere fiction ; because, although a 
sound brain (the instrument of the Mind) may exist in an 
invalid body, still robust health is nevertheless useful and 
desirable, and it is important, for the development of occult 
powers, to select proper food and follow such laws of 
Hygiene as the individual may require. 

u What may be one man’s food, will be another man’s 
poison ; ” in the sphere of matter as well as in the sphere 


ANIMAL FOOD. 


133 


of the emotions. Strong constitutions can bear strong 
food, weak minds will get frightened at unwelcome truths. 
Intemperance in food and drink is as bad as intemperance 
in emotion ; and self-restraint is equally necessary on both 
planes. 

No man has ever become an Adept merely because he 
lived on vegetables ; a vegetable diet is, however, much 
preferable to meat-eating for various reasons. Apart from 
the self-evident fact that it is entirely untheosophical and 
opposed to the divine law of justice that he who strives 
after the attainment of a higher state of existence should 
destroy animal life, or cause others to destroy it for the 
purpose of gratifying his animal appetite, it will be plain to 
every one who investigates the laws of the higher life, that 
the loading of the human organism with animal substances 
will not facilitate its penetration by the light of the divine 
spirit. 

Those who desire to become more spiritual and refined 
should avoid supplying their bodies with that which is 
gross ; those who desire to master their passions should 
not feed themselves with substances in which the elements 
of such passions reside; those who wish to come into pos¬ 
session of more ethereal forms act unwisely if they supply 
the latter with substances which must necessarily render 
them more gross, and material and dense, and thus hinder 
the free movements of the spirit within. Instances may be 
known, where a person has attained a considerable degree of 
spiritual development in spite of living on the corpses of 
animals ; but such instances are very rare, and it may be 
said without hesitation that one of the first steps to the 
acquisition of spiritual refinement is the ahandonme 7 it of 
animal food . 

A great variety of different kinds of food produces dis¬ 
orders of the digestive organs and impurities of the blood ; 
a struggle for life ensues between the different auras, and 
excitement, fever, and disease is the result. The same 
law explains the origin of venereal and cutaneous diseases, 
and in the astral plane, a great variety of emotions, called 
into existence within a short space of time, may render a 
person insane. 

Numerous cases of severe chronic diseases are known 
to have been cured by fasting—either voluntary or en¬ 
forced. Man actually needs but little food. Gluttony is 
a habit, not a necessity. 


>34 


INFECTIONS . 


Wherever two forces of an entirely opposite charactei 
meet, disharmony will be the result, and as everybody has 
his own peculiar emanations and auras and transmits them 
to others, so everyone receives the magnetic auras of others 
or of the locality by which he is surrounded, and these 
emanations may be either wholesome or pestiferous ; men 
and women may either cure or poison each other by them, 
and it may therefore be well to follow the advice which 
Gautama Buddha gave to his disciples, and eat and sleep 
alone. 

Many people are very careful to have their food well 
prepared, so that no unhealthy food enters the body \ 
while at the same time they are very careless as to what 
emotions enter their mind ; because they fail to realize 
that purity of the emotions is as necessary as purity of the 
body. 

A strong force overcomes a weak force, and a stronger 
emotion may render a weaker one inactive. If the strong 
emotion is high, it elevates the lower, if the lower one is 
the strongest, degradation is the result. Cautiousness 
may keep combativeness in check or make man a coward ; 
but without cautiousness combativeness will fly off at a 
tangent, and rashness and disaster may be the result. 

The higher emotions evolute from the lower ones, and 
by the control of reason vices grow into virtues. Intense 
love of self may expand into love of wife and friends, or 
widen still more into a love of country or a love of human¬ 
ity. The more it expands the more it becomes refined. 

Nothing in the universe can be annihilated, only the 
form can be changed. An emotion cannot be killed, but 
it can be educated up to a higher level. 

Purely sexual instinct may be transformed into a pure 
love of an elevated character by associating with a person 
of the other sex, who is of a highly moral and intellectual 
nature; brutal combativeness may be purified by leading 
it into an intellectual channel, where the pen will take the 
place of a cudgel : acquisitiveness may be elevated into a 
craving for knowledge, and destructiveness into a desire 
for the destruction of error. 

It has been said that our vices are the ladder on which 
we may climb up to heaven, and this.is undoubtedly true, 
because the only effective virtue which man can possess is 
energy , and if we employ our energies for good instead of 


USE OF THE PASS/OHS. 


*35 

evil, we turn our vice into virtue ; but he who possesses no 
energy is equally useless for good as he is for evil. 

There can be nothing absolutely wrong in employing 
the natural instincts and emotions in a natural and legiti¬ 
mate manner ; the question is only whether such an em¬ 
ployment will be useful for the purpose we have in view. 
If we have a sum of money at our disposal, we have a right 
to spend it for pleasure, or to buy something useful, or to 
throw it away. In the same manner we may spend our 
physical forces, our vital energies, or our emotions, for the 
pursuit of useful pleasures or for the purpose of our higher 
evolution; but as we cannot expend the same sum of 
money again after it is once spent, so the sum of energies 
expended for a low purpose will be lost for the higher 
object in view. If a person has no higher object in view 
than to eat and drink, sleep and propagate his species, he 
may be thereby rendered perfectly happy, and if he fol¬ 
lows the dictates of his nature, there can be nothing wrong; 
but he who desires to assist the slow process of nature in 
developing himself into an immortal being, must take care 
not to waste his strength on lower attractions ; and in the 
course of time the energies which produced the lower 
emotions will develop into not less strong but higher 
emotions; the whole of the lower activity will be trans¬ 
formed into a higher one. 

Only that which is pure can be harmonious. 

Singleness of purpose renders a motive pure, but a variety 
of purposes causes impurity. If a person devotes himself 
to a certain mode of life, because all his desires are directed 
towards that end, his motive will be pure; but if he has 
besides other objects in view, his motive will be impure, 
and may defeat his aim. 

The word “ asceticism ” is continually misapplied. A 
man who lives in a convent, or as an hermit in the wilder¬ 
ness, is not an “ ascetic,” if he has no desire for a life in 
the world ; for it is no act of self-denial to avoid that which 
we do not want. “Asceticism” means discipline, and a 
person who is disgusted with the ways of the world under¬ 
goes a much more severe discipline, if he remains in the 
world, than if he runs away, and goes where he may enjoy 
his peace. The real ascetic is therefore he who lives in the 
midst of the society whose manners displease him, and 
whose tastes are not his own, and who, in spite of all the 
temptations by which he may be surrounded, still maintains 


i 3 6 


ASCETICISM. 


his integrity of character. Strength only grows by resist¬ 
ance, and our enemies are therefore our friends, if we know 
how to use them. A hermit living in the woods, where he 
has no one to contradict and resist him, can gain no 
strength. Such a life is only suitable for one who has 
already gained full strength, and who wants to enjoy that 
which he already possesses. Tranquillity is only suitable 
for the Adept; the Neophite must go through the ordeal 
of life. 

Metals are purified by fire, and the emotions by suffer¬ 
ing. The lower desires must starve to nourish the higher; 
the animal passions must be crucified and die; but the 
angel of Will removes the stone from the sepulchre, and 
liberates the higher energies from the sphere of selfishness 
and darkness ; and then the resurrected virtues will begin 
to live and become active in a new world of enduring light 
and harmony. 

To obtain a clear view of the process of purification of 
man, imagine yourself immersed in a mist of matter, sur¬ 
rounded by inimical influences from the emotions of the 
astral plane that gradually lead to your dissolution. 
Deep in yourself, in the cloudless centre of your soul, and 
yet seemingly far above you, is your internal god, your 
ethereal prototype, your real self, the immortal Adonai, 
like a mirage, waiting to attract your more refined elements 
towards himself. The more you concentrate your thoughts 
and desires upon your lower self, and cling to the sphere 
of desires, the more will the serene image grow dim and 
shadowy; but if your aspirations and thoughts, made 
effective by your Will and your acts, rise above the sphere 
of self and cling to the pure ideal, then your higher energies 
will flow towards it, making it grow more and more dis¬ 
tinct and substantial, until your innermost self .and your 
consciousness is united with it, and free from all earthly 
attractions, looks down upon that which remains below, 
and beholds in it only the shadow of its own immortal 
reality. Desire results from attraction, attraction results 
from the separation of two substances, analogous in their 
essences and properties. We cannot desire a thing of 
which we know nothing, and if we are attracted to a thing, 
there must necessarily be in us a portion of it desirous to 
reunite itself with the portion from which it is separated. 
A human being possessed of a divine spark of the univer¬ 
sal spirit knows intuitively the source from which it came 


PURIFICA TION. 


137 


and with which it desires to become reunited, without 
needing any scientific demonstration to convince him intel¬ 
lectually of this truth. 

To recognize the purity of the divine spark within is 
true adoration, to attempt to realize it is true meditation; 
to exert the will to bring one’s self in perfect harmony 
with it, is aspiration or prayer. To express that prayer in 
acts, is to make it effective. True prayer is always 
efficacious on the plane whereon it is made to act. Prayer 
on the physical plane consists in physical works, on the 
astral plane it purifies the emotions through the action of 
the will; in the realm of the intellect study is prayer and 
leads to knowledge, and the highest spiritual aspirations 
lift man out of the turmoil of matter and bring him nearer 
to his own god. 

There is not a single instance known in history in which 
true prayer has not been efficacious. If any man has not 
obtained that which he asked, it only proves that he did 
not know how to pray. True prayer means self-sacrifice ; 
a giving up of the low upon the altar of the high. True 
prayer does not consist in words, but in actions, and the 
gods help him who helps himself; but he who expects that 
the gods should do for him that which he ought to accom¬ 
plish himself, does not know how to pray, and will be 
disappointed. Prayer means a rising up in our thoughts 
and aspirations to our highest ideal, but if we do not our¬ 
selves rise up to it, we do not pray. If we expect our 
highest ideal to come down to us, we expect an absurdity 
and impossibility. 

To attain the highest the spirit should be the master, 
the passions, the servants. A helpless cripple is the slave 
of his servant; a man who depends on ignorant servants 
to do work which he can do himself has, to a certain 
extent, to submit to their whims and imperfections, and if 
he changes his servants, that does not change his position. 
A person who has vulgar desires and tastes becomes the 
servant of these tastes ; they dictate to him, and he has to 
exert himself to obtain the means to gratify their claims; 
but he who has no ignoble desires to serve, is independent 
and free and his own master. He has conquered matter, 
his strife with the astral elements ceases. For him discord 
can then no longer exist, and his purified elements will 
find their responsive vibrations in the eternal life of the 
universal spirit of Love. 


t 

CHAPTER VI. 

ILLUSION. 

“Reason dissipates the illusions and visionary interpretations ol 
things, in which the imagination runs riot.”— Dr. Caird . 


The first power that meets us at the threshold of soul’s 
dominion is the power of imagination ; it is the plastic and 
creative power of the mind. Man is conscious of being 
able to receive ideas and to put them into forms. He 
lives not entirely in the objective world, but possesses an 
interior world of his own. It is in his power to be the 
sole autocrat in that world, the master of its creations and 
lord over all it contains. He may govern there by the 
supreme power of his will, and if ideas intrude, which 
have no legitimate right to exist in it, it is in his power 
either to drive them away or suffer them to remain and to 
grow. His reason is the supreme ruler in that world, its 
ministers are the emotions. If man’s reason, misled by 
the treacherous advice of the emotions, suffers evil ideas 
to grow, they may become powerful and dethrone reason, 
unless it employs the Will to suppress them. 

This interior world, like the outer world, is a world of 
its own. It is sometimes dark, sometimes illuminated; 
its space and the things it contains are as real to its 
inhabitants as the physical world is real to the physical 
senses; its horizon may be either narrow or expanded, 
limited in some and without limits in others ; it has its 
beautiful scenery and its dismal localities, its sunshine 
and storms, its forms of beauty and horrible shapes. It is 
the privilege of intellectual man to retire to that world 
whenever he chooses ; physical enemies do not persecute 
him there; bodily pain cannot enter. The vexations of 



THE INNER KINGDOM. 


>39 

material life remain behind, but the emotions enter with 
him. 

This interior realm of the soul is the Temple of Man 
wherein we should shut ourselves and lock the door 
against the intrusion of sensual impressions, if we desire 
to “ pray.” On the entrance of that temple are the 
Dwellers of the Threshold, our desires and passions, 
which are our own creations, and which must be con¬ 
quered before we can enter. Within that temple exists a 
world, as big and as illimitable as the external unbounded 
universe, the forms of which we see with our physical eyes. 
This inner world is filled with the products of man’s own 
creation ; some of them inactive, but others have become 
active and living entities, which may assume dominion and, 
by growing into power, dethrone the real king, Reason. 
In this inner realm each man is—or ought to be—the God 
whose spirit floats over the waters of the deep, and whose 
fiat calls into existence only that which is useful and 
good. The more this inner individual god will be in har¬ 
mony with the God of the universe, the more will the two 
become one, and the greater will be the perfection of the 
inner world over the happiness of the individual. Only 
when man has found himself in that inner world, will he 
begin a life which must necessarily be immortal because it 
is free from change, and having become his own master, 
he can belong to nobody but himself—not to his lower— 
but to his highest self, which is one with the eternal Christ 
or the Maha-atma of the universe. 

In that interior world is the battle-ground of the gods. 
There the gods of love and hate, the daemons of lust and 
pride, and anger, the devils of malice, cruelty, and re¬ 
venge, vanity, envy, and jealousy, may hold high carnival, 
they may stir up the emotions, and, unless subdued by 
Reason, they may grow strong enough to dethrone it. 

Reason rests upon Truth. Wherever truth is disre¬ 
garded illusions appear. If we lose sight of the highest, 
the lower will appear to be the highest, and an illusion 
will be created. One is the number of Truth, Six is the 
number of illusion, because the Six have no existence 
without the Seventh, they are the visible products of the 
one, manifesting itself as six around an invisible centre. 
Wherever they are six, there must be the seventh, although 
the presence of the latter may not be manifest. One is 


140 


ANIMAL FORMS. 


the number of life, and six the number of shadows from 
which life has departed. 

Forms without life are illusive, and he who mistakes 
the form for the life or principle of which it is an expres¬ 
sion is haunted by an illusion. Forms perish, but the 
principle that causes their existence remains. The object 
of forms is to represent principles, and as long as a form 
is known to be a true representation of a principle the 
principle gives it life ; but if a form is made to serve 
another principle than the one which called it into exist¬ 
ence, degradation and death will be the final result. 

The irrational forms produced by nature are perfect ex¬ 
pressions of the principles they are intended to represent; 
rational beings only are the dissemblers. Each animal is 
a true expression of the character represented by its form, 
only at the point where intellectuality begins deception 
commences. Each animal form is a symbol of the mental 
state which characterizes its soul, because it is not itself 
the arbitrary originator of its form, but rational man has 
it in his power to create, and if he prostitutes one prin¬ 
ciple in a form for another, the form will gradually adopt 
that shape which characterizes the prostituted principle, 
of which, in the course.of time, it becomes a true expres¬ 
sion. 

Therefore we find that a man of noble appearance, by 
becoming a miser, gradually adopts the sneaking look and 
the stealthy gait of an animal going in search of its prey ; 
the lascivious may acquire the habits, and perhaps the 
appearance of a monkey or goat, the sly one the features 
of a fox, and the conceited the looks of a donkey. 

If our bodies were formed of a more ethereal and plastic 
material than of muscles and bones, each change of our 
character would produce quickly a corresponding change 
of our form; but gross matter is inert, and follows only 
slowly the impressions made upon the soul. For this 
reason the deduction of Phrenology, Physiognomy, etc., 
however much truth they may contain, cannot convey 
absolute truth. The material of which astral forms and 
souls are made are more plastic, and the soul of a villain¬ 
ous person may actually resemble a pool filled with vipers 
and scorpions, the true symbol of his moral characteristics, 
mirrored in his mind. A generation of saints would, in 
the course of time, produce a nation of Apollos and 


PURITY, 


Mi 


Dianas, a generation of villains would grow into monsters 
and dwarfs. To keep the form in its original beauty the 
principle must be kept pure and without any adulteration. 

One fundamental color of the solar spectrum, if unmixed, 
is as pure as another; one element, if free from another, is 
pure. Unmixed copper is as pure as unalloyed gold, 
and emotions are pure if free from extraneous mixing. 
Forms are pure if they represent their principles in their 
purity; a villain who shows himself what he is is pure and 
true, a saint who dissembles is impure and false. Fash¬ 
ions are the external expressions of the mental states of a 
country, and if men and women degenerate in their char¬ 
acter their fashions will become absurd. 

The want of power to discriminate between the true and 
the illusive, between the form and the principle, and the 
consequent error of apprehending the low for the high, is 
the cause of suffering. Man’s material interests are 
frequently considered to be of supreme importance, and 
the interests of the highest elements in his constitution are 
forgotten. The power that should be expended to feed 
the high is eaten up by the low. Instead of the low 
serving the high, the high is made to serve the low, and 
instead of the form being used as an instrument of action 
for the principle, the principle is made to wait until the 
claims of the form are attended to ; in other words, a low 
principle is substituted for a higher one. 

Such a prostitution of principle in favor of form is found 
in all spheres of social life. We find it among the rich and 
the poor, the educated and the ignorant, in the forum, the 
press, and the pulpit, no less than in the halls of the mer¬ 
chant and in the daily transactions of life. The prostitu¬ 
tion of principle is worse than the prostitution of the body, 
and he who uses his intellectual powers for selfish and 
villainous purposes is more to be pitied than she who car¬ 
ries on a trade with her bodily charms to gain the means 
by which she may keep that body alive. The prostitution 
of universal human rights for the benefit of a few individ¬ 
uals is the most dangerous form of prostitution on Earth. 

The difference between vulgar prostitution of the body 
and the more refined prostitution of the intellectual 
faculties for the purpose of accomplishing selfish ends, is 
merely that in the first class merely the grossest parts of 
the human organization are misused, while in the other 


142 


PROSTITUTION OF THE INTELLECT, 


class the higher and more permanent parts are misused 
The consequences of the latter kind must therefore be 
much more lasting than those of the former. There are 
few women in the world who have' become degraded from 
an inclination to be so ; in the great majority of cases they 
are the victims of circumstances which they had not the 
power to resist; but intellectual villains usually belong to 
the higher classes, where want and poverty are unknown. 

To employ the intellectual powers for the mere purpose 
of “ making money '* is the beginning of intellectual pros¬ 
titution. Blessed are they who are able to gain their bread 
by the honest work of their hands, for an employment 
which requires little intellectual attention will leave them 
free to employ their mental powers for the purpose of 
spiritual meditation and unfoldment; while those who 
spend all their mental energy upon the lower planes are 
selling their immortal birthright for a worthless mess of 
potage which may nourish the body while it starves the 
soul. 

The greatest of all illusions is the illusion of “ Self.” 
Material man looks upon himself as something existing 
apart from every other existence. The shape of his form 
creates the illusion of, being an independent substantial 
whole, and the changes in that form take place so slow and 
imperceptible, that the error is not perceived. Still, there 
is not a single element in his body, in the constitution of 
his soul, or in the mechanism of his intellect, that is not 
continually departing, and is replaced by others from the 
universal fountain of life. What belongs to him to-day 
belonged yesterday to another, and may belong to another 
to-morrow. In his physical form there is a continual 
change. In the bodies of organized beings tissues disap¬ 
pear slowly or quickly, according to the nature of their 
affinities, and new ones take their places, to be replaced in 
turn by others. The human body changes in size, shape, 
and density as age advances, presenting successively the 
symbols of the buoyant health of youth, the vigorous con¬ 
stitution of manhood, or the grace and beauty of woman¬ 
hood, up to the attributes indicating old age, the forerunner 
of decay and cessation of activity in that individual form. 

No less is the change in the soul. Sensation and desires 
change, consciousness changes, memories grow dim. No 
man has the same opinions he had when he was a child; 


PERSONALITY. 


14 


knowledge increases, intellect grows weak, and on the 
mental as well as on the physical plane the special activity 
ceases when the accumulated energy is exhausted by trans¬ 
formation into other modes of action or is transferred in 
other forms. 

The lower material elements in the constitution of man 
change rapidly, the higher ones change slowly, but only 
the highest elements are enduring. Nothing can be said 
to belong essentially to man but the character of his sixth 
principle in its union with the seventh. He who cares a 
great deal for his lower principles, cares for things that are 
not his own, but which he has only borrowed from nature. 
While he enjoys their possession an illusion is created, 
making them appear to be an essential part of himself, and 
his imagination revels in their fancied possession. They 
are, however, not more an essential part of himself than 
the clothes which a man wears, a constituent part of the 
man. His only true self is his character, and he who 
loses the strength of his character loses all his possessions. 

One of the kings of illusions is Money, the king of the 
world. Money represents the principle of equity, and it 
should be employed to enable every one to obtain the just 
equivalent for his labor. If we desire more money than 
we can rightfully claim, we wish for something that does 
not belong to us but to another, and we repulse the divine 
principle of truth. If we obtain labor without paying for 
it its proper equivalent, we deprive others of justice, and 
therefore deprive ourselves of the principle of truth, which 
is a more serious loss to ourselves than the loss of money 
to the defrauded. 

Money as such is an illusion, only the principle of 
justice, which it represents, has a real existence. Never¬ 
theless we see the world lie at the feet of the form. The 
poor clamor for it, and the rich crave for more, and the 
general desire is to obtain the greatest amount of reward 
by giving the least possible equivalent. There are priests 
who save souls, and doctors who cure bodies for money ; 
law is sold to him who is able and willing to pay, fame and 
reputation and the semblance of love can be obtained for 
money, and the worth of a man is expressed in the sum of 
shillings or pounds which he may call his own. Starvation 
threatens the poor, and the consequence of superabundance 
the rich, and some of the rich take advantage of the distress 


144 


MONEY. 


of the poor to enrich themselves more. Science exerts her 
powers to increase the amount of the material comforts of 
man. It vanquishes the impediments presented by time 
and space, and turns night into day. New engines are 
invented, and the work whose performance in former 
times required the use of a thousand arms, may now be 
accomplished by a child. An immense amount of personal 
suffering and labor is thereby saved. But as the means 
to satisfy the craving for comfort increase, a craving arises 
for more. Things that formerly were considered luxuries 
now become indispensable needs. Illusions create illusions, 
and desires give rise to desires. The sight of the principle 
is lost, and the golden calf is put into its place. Produc¬ 
tion is followed by over production, the supply exceeds 
the demand, the price of labor comes down to starvation 
rates, and on the rotten soil the mushrooms of monopoly 
grow. The more the facilities increase to sustain the battle of 
life, the more increases its fury. The noblest power of man, 
his intellect, whose destiny it is to form a solid basis for 
the highest spiritual aspirations of man, is forced to labor 
for the satisfaction of the animal instincts of man ; the 
body flourishes, and the spirit starves and becomes a 
beggar in the kingdom of truth. 

From the love of self arises the love of possession. It is 
the hydra-headed monster whose cravings can never be 
stilled. Nearest to the illusion of self stands the illusion 
of Love. True love is not an illusion, it is the power that 
unites the world and an attribute of the spirit; but the 
illusion of love is not love, but only love’s shadow. True 
love seeks only for the happiness of the object it loves, 
but animal love cares for itself, and seeks only enjoyment. 
True love exists, even if the form is dissolved ; false love 
dies, when the form to which it was attached decays. 

Ideal woman is the crown of creation, and has a right to 
be loved by man. A male being, who does not love the 
character of a woman, bears only the semblance of a man, 
and man is not a complete being unless he possesses 
woman’s love. A man who does not love beauty has no 
element of beauty in him. But the man who only fancies 
woman’s attractions, and not the woman herself, is repulsed 
by her. If only his instincts attract him to her she sees 
his weakness and is repulsed by it. She may be rendered 
vain enough by the possession of such charms as to enjoy 


FANCY. 


*45 


the victory gained by them over a fool, but an intelligent 
woman looks upon such a victim as an object of pity and 
commiseration., and not as a source of strength. 

Man loves beauty and woman loves strength. A man 
who is the slave of his desires is weak, and cannot com¬ 
mand the respect of a woman he professes to love. If she 
sees him squirm under the lash of his animal instincts she 
will not be able to look upon him as her protector and 
god. 

Man represents Reason, and woman represents Will. If 
the will is in harmony with reason it will be as one. If 
they act against each other illusions come into existence. 

Another illusion is the craving for physical life, and well 
may he crave for it who has no character of his own, 
because, having lost his character, if he loses his life, he 
loses his all. Men and women cling to the illusion of life 
because they do not know what life is. They will submit 
to indignity, dishonor, and suffering rather than die. 
Life is a means to an end, and as such it is valuable ; but 
why should life be so desirable as to sacrifice character for 
it ? One life is only one temporary condition among a 
thousand similar ones through which the character of a 
man passes in its travels on the road to perfection, and 
whether he remains a longer or a shorter interval at one 
station, cannot be of any very serious importance to him. 
Man can make no better use of his life than to sacrifice it, 
if necessary, for the welfare of others ; because this act 
will strengthen his own character, in which rests the source 
of his life, and the power by which he is enabled to 
reappear in a new form. 

On the other hand, he who sneaks away from the 
battle of life for selfish purposes, or because he is afraid to 
continue its struggles, will not escape. He may wish to 
step out of life and destroy his body, but the law cannot 
be cheated. Life will remain with him until his natural 
days would have ended. He cannot destroy it, he can 
only deprive himself of the instrument through which he 
can act. He resembles a man who has to perform some 
work and throws away the instrument which would have 
enabled him to perform it. Vain will be his regrets. 

But if, in the cases of sane suicides, the illusion called 
life continues after the death of the physical body, and 
consciousness remains with the astral form, then a serious 
question arises in regard to the disposal of the bodies of 


146 


CRA VING FOR ANIMAL LIFE. 


such unfortunate persons; for wherever consciousness 
exists, there must be sensation, and as in such instances a 
magnetic connection is said to continue to exist between 
the astral man and his corpse, it appears not impossible 
that the post mortem communications of suicides are true, 
and that injuries inflicted upon the body may under certain 
conditions be felt very acutely by the disembodied man. 

Another illusion is a great deal of what is called 
“ science.” True knowledge makes a man free, but false 
science renders him a slave to the opinions of others. 
Many men waste their lives to learn that which is foolish 
and neglect that which is true, mistaking that which is 
evanescent and perishing for the eternal. Nor is their 
desire for learning usually caused by a desire to learn the 
truth, else they would not reject the truth when they see it. 
In the majority of cases learning is not the aim but the 
means to the aim of the student, while his real objects are 
the attainment of wealth, position, and fame, or the grati¬ 
fication of curiosity. The true wealth of a nation or a man 
does not rest in intellectual acquirements, but in spiritual 
possessions, which alone will remain permanent. 

There is nothing more productive of a tendency to the 
development of an extreme degree of selfishness than the 
development of a high degree of intellectuality, without 
any accompanying growth of spirituality. Whoever doubts 
this assertion let him observe the petty jealousies every¬ 
where prevailing among the learned professions. More¬ 
over, a high degree of intellectuality enables a person to 
take personal advantages over others who are less learned, 
and unless he possesses great moral powers he may not be 
able to resist the temptations that are put in his way. The 
greatest villains and criminals have been persons of great 
intellectual qualifications. A development of the intellect 
is necessary to understand spiritual truths after they are 
once perceived, but they cannot be perceived by the 
intellect without spirituality ; they can only be perceived 
by the power of the spirit. The development of spiritual 
powers of perception is, therefore, of supreme importance ; 
that of the intellect comes next. “ Blessed is he whom 
the truth teaches, not by perishable emblems and words, 
but by its own inherent power ; not what it appears to be, 
but as it is.” * 


* Thomas de Kempis. 



AMBITION. 


147 


The love of power and fame are other illusions. True 
power is an attribute of the spirit. If I am obeyed because 
I am rich, it is not myself who commands obedience, but 
my riches. If I am called powerful because I enjoy 
authority, it is not myself who is powerful, but it is the 
authority vested in me. Riches and authority are halos 
thrown around men, which often vanish as quickly as they 
have been acquired. Fame is often enjoyed by him who 
does not deserve it, and the most honored man is he who 
has cause to respect himself on account of his acts. 

Place of birth and condition of life are circumstances 
which are usually not matters of choice, and no one has a 
right to despise another on account of his nationality, reli¬ 
gious belief, color of skin, or the act he may play on this 
planet. Conditions are illusions, caused by the conse¬ 
quences of other illusions; they do not belong to the 
essential character of man. Whether an actor plays the 
part of a king or a servant, the actor is, therefore, not 
despised, provided he plays his part well. 

There are other illusions which come without being 
asked, and remain, although their stay is not wanted. 
They are the unwelcome visitors— Fear, Doubt , and 
Remorse , and they, like all other illusions, are caused by 
ignorance of the true nature of man and the extent of his 
powers. Men sometimes live in fear of a revengeful power 
which has no existence, and may die from fear of an evil 
that does not exist. They are often afraid of the effects of 
causes which they, nevertheless, continue to create; they 
may doubt whether they will succeed in cheating the law, 
not knowing that the real man is himself the law and 
cannot be cheated. Every acts creates a cause, and the 
cause is followed by an effect which reacts on him who 
created the cause, whether he may experience that effect 
in this life or in another. To escape the effect of the 
cause which has been created, he who created the cause 
must try to transform himself into another man. If his 
lower principles have led him into mistakes they will suffer, 
but if he succeeds in assimilating his nature with his higher 
principles, and thereby changes himself into a being of a 
different character, their suffering will not be of the greatest 
importance to him. Such is the only rational philosophy 
of the “ forgiveness of sins,” and priests could forgive sins 


i 4 8 FEAR, DOUBT AND REMORSE. 

if they were able to change the sinner into a saint. This 
can, however, only be done by the individual exertions of 
the “ sinner,” who may be instructed by one who is wise. 
To become sufficiently wise to instruct another about the 
laws or his nature it is of the utmost importance that the 
instructor should know these laws, and be acquainted with 
the true constitution of man. 

Reason is the savior of man, ignorance is his death and 
unreason his suffering. Reason is the power of the mind 
to recognize the truth, and in the light of truth the shadows 
of doubt and fear and remorse cannot exist. 

Illusions are dispersed by Reason through the power of 
Will. When the will is held in abeyance the imagination 
is rendered passive, and the mind takes in the reflections of 
pictures stored up in the Astral Light without choice or 
discrimination. When reason does not guide the imagin¬ 
ation the mind creates disorderly fancies and hallucina¬ 
tions. The passive seer dreams while awake, and may 
mistake his dreams for realities, but his dreams may be his 
own creations, or they may be impressions caused by 
floating ideas taking possession of the unresisting mind, 
and, according to the source from which such impressions 
come, they may be either true or false. Various means 
have been adopted to suspend the discriminating power of 
will and render the imagination abnormally passive, and 
all such practices are injurious, in proportion as they are 
efficacious. The ancient Pythoness attempted to heighten 
her already abnormal receptivity by the inhalation of 
noxious vapors ; savage and semi-civilized people some¬ 
times use poisons, or whirl in a dance until the action of 
reason is temporarily suspended ; others use opium, Indian 
hemp, and other narcotics, which not only suspend their 
will and render their mind a blank, but which also excite 
the brain, and induce morbid fancies and illusions.* 


* The fumigations which were used at former times for the purpose 
of rendering reason inactive, and allowing the products of a passive 
imagination to appear in an objective state, were usually narcotic 
substances. Blood was only used for the purpose of furnishing substance 
to Elementals and Elementaries, by the aid of which they might render 
their bodies more dense and visible. 

Cornelius Agrippa gives the following prescription : Make a powder 
of spermaceti, aloe wood, musk, saffron, and thyme, sprinkle it with the 
blood of a hoopop. If this powder is burnt upon the graves of the 



ASTRAL PERCEPTIONS. 


149 


Fortune-tellers and clairvoyants employ various means to 
fix their attention, to suspend thought and render their 
minds passive, and the images which they receive may be 
true or false; others stare at mirrors or crystals, water or 
ink,* * but the Adept, while not forsaking the use of his 
reason, renders his imagination passive by maintaining, 
under all circumstances, a serene tranquillity of the mind. 
The surface of a lake whose water is in motion reflects only 
distorted reproductions of images projected upon it, and if 
the elements in the interior world are in a state of con¬ 
fusion, if emotion fights with emotion and the uproar of the 
passions troubles the mind, if the heaven of the soul is 
clouded by prejudices, darkened by ignorance, hallucinated 
by insane desires, the true images of things seen will be 
equally distorted. The divine principle in man remains in 
itself unaltered and undisturbed, like the image of a star 


dead, the ethereal forms of the latter will approach, and may become 
visible. 

Eckartshousen made successful experiments with the following pre¬ 
scription : Mix powdered frankincense and flour with an egg, add milk, 
honey, and rosewater, make a paste, and throw some of it upon burning 
coals. 

Another prescription given by the same author consists of hemlock, 
saffron, aloes, opium, mandragora, henbane, poppy-flowers, and some 
other poisonous plants. After undergoing a certain preparation, which 
he describes, he attempted the experiment, and saw the ghost of the 
person which he desired to see; but he came very near poisoning 
himself. Dr. Horst repeated the experiment with the same result, and 
for years afterwards, whenever he looked upon a dark object, he saw the 
apparition again. 

Chemistry has advanced since that time, and those who desire to make 
such experiments at the risk of their health, may now accomplish this in 
a more comfortable and easy manner by inhaling some of the stupefying 
gases known to chemical science. 

* There are numerous prescriptions for the preparation of magic 
mirrors ; but the best magic mirror will be useless to him who is not 
able to see clairvoyantly ; while the natural clairvoyant may call that 
faculty into action by concentrating his mind on any particular spot, a 
glass of water, ink, a crystal, or anything else ; for it is not in the mirror 
where such things are seen, but in the mind ; the mirror merely serves 
to assist in the entering of that mental state which is necessary to pro 
duce clairvoyant sight. The best of all magic mirrors is the soul of 
man, and it should always be kept pure, and be protected against dust 
and dampness and rust, so that it may not become tarnished, and remain 
perfectly clear, and able to reflect the light of the divine spirit in its 
original purity. 



15 ° 


CL AIR VO YA NCE. 


reflected in water ; but unless its dwelling is rendered clear 
and transparent, it cannot send its rays through the sur¬ 
rounding walls. The more the emotions rage, the more 
will the mind become disturbed and the spirit be forced to 
retreat into its interior prison ; or if it loses entirely its 
hold over the mind, it may be driven away by the forces 
which it cannot control, burst the door of its dungeon, 
return to the source from whence it came, and leave man 
behind as a living corpse, a maniac, * in which the spiritual 
principle is entirely inactive. 

If a person suffers his reason to give up the control over 
his imagination he surrenders one of the greatest prero¬ 
gatives of man, and exposes himself to danger. In the 
normal condition reason guides the imagination to a certain 
extent; in abnormal conditions the will of another may 
take its place, or it may roam without being guided, 
influenced only by previously-existing conditions. A person 
who dreams does not control the actions which he performs 
in his dream, although he may dream that he is exercising 
his will. The things seen in his dream are to him realities, 
and he does not doubt their substantiality, while external 
physical objects have no existence for him, and not even 
the possibility of their existence comes to his consciousness. 
He may see before him a ditch and dream that he wills to 
jump over it, but he does not actually exert his will, he 
only follows the impulses created during his waking con¬ 
dition. A person in a trance may be so much under the 
influence of a “ magnetizer ” as to have no active will of 
his own, and be only led by the imagination of the operator. 
The avenues of his external senses are closed, and he lives 
entirely in the subjective world, in which material objects 
can find no place, and in which such objects could by no 
means be introduced. Still what he sees is real to him, 
and if the operator creates a precipice in his imagination, 
perhaps represented by a chalk mark on the floor (to assist 
the imagination of the operator), the “ subject ” will, on 
approaching it, experience and manifest the same terror as 
he would in his normal state if a precipice were yawning 
under his feet; and if the operator should have the cruelty 
to will the entranced to jump over its edge, the most 
serious consequences to the individual might follow. A 


See H. P. Blavatsky : “ Isis Unveiled . 5 



MEDIUMSHIP. 


* 5 * 


glass of water transformed into imaginary wine by the will 
of the “ mesmerizer ” may make the subject intoxicated* 
and if that water has been transformed into imaginary 
poison it may injure or kill the sensitive. A powerful 
“ mesmerizer ” ca’ form either a beautiful or a horrible 
picture in his mind, and by transferring it by his will upon 
the mental sphere of a sensitive, he may cause him—even 
if the latter is in his normal condition—either pleasure or 
suffering, while the mental images so created in the mind 
of the sensitive may again react upon others and be per¬ 
ceived by them. 

If a person is en rapport with a magnetized subject, 
the image or even a thought existing in the mind of the 
former is immediately accepted as a reality by the latter. 

Such states may be induced, not merely during the 
magnetic sleep, but also during the normal condition, and 
without any active desire on the part of a magnetizer. If 
the audience sheds tears during the performance of a 
tragedy, although they all know that it is merely a play, 
they are in a state of partial magnetization. Hundreds of 
similar occurrences take place every day, and there is 
sufficient material everywhere in every-day life for the stu¬ 
dent of psychology to investigate and explain, without 
seeking for cases of an abnormal character. 

If a “ Medium ” submits the control over his imagina¬ 
tion to another being he becomes his servant. This other 
being may be another person, or it may be an idea, an 
emotion, a passion, and the effect on the passive Medium 
will be proportionate to the intensity of the action mani¬ 
fested by them. It may be an elemental, an astral corpse, 
or a malicious influence, and the Medium may become an 
epileptic, a maniac, or a criminal, A person who surren¬ 
ders the control over his imagination, indiscriminately, to 
every unknown power, is not less insane than he who 
would entrust his money and valuables to the first un¬ 
known stranger or vagabond that would ask him for it. 

Mediumship is nothing else but a process of transfer of 
thought, and differs from an ordinary magnetic experi¬ 
ment only in so far as in the latter the operator is a visible 
person, while in the former the influence proceeds from 
an invisible source, and is the more dangerous because 
being invisible it is not known from whence it proceeds. 
If a magnetizer commands his subject to commit a mur- 


I S 2 


MENTAL IMAGERY. 


der, the latter may commit it, even after he has awakened 
from his sleep. In such a case the operator is the mur 
derer, and the subject merely the instrument. 

How many murders and crimes are committed every 
year through sensitive persons, who have been influenced 
or “ mesmerized ” by visible persons or invisible thoughts 
to commit them, and who had not sufficient will power to 
resist, it is impossible to determine. In such cases we 
hang or punish the instrument, but the real culprit 
escapes. Such a “justice” is equivalent to punishing a 
stick with which a murder has been committed, and to let 
the man who used the stick go free. Verily the coming 
generations will have as much cause to laugh at the ignor¬ 
ance of their ancestors as we now laugh at the ignorance 
of those who preceded us. 

The state of the imagination is a great factor in the 
observation and appreciation of things. The savage may 
see in the sculptured Minerva only a curious piece of 
rock, and a beautiful painting may be to him only a piece 
of cloth daubed over with colors. The ^eedy misei, on 
looking at the beauties of nature, thinks o ly of the 
money-value they represent, while for the poet the forest 
swarms with fairies and the water with spri s. The artist 
finds beautiful forms in the wandering clou Is a. d in :he 
projecting rocks of the mountains, and to hi wh e ind 
is poetic every symbol in nature becomes a p">em d s■ y 
gests to him new ideas ; but the coward wanders . rough 
life with a scowl upon his face ; he sees in every orner 
an enemy, and for him the world has nothing attractive 
except his own little self. The man who cannot be trusted 
is ever mistrustful, the thief fears to be robbed, and the 
backbiter is extremely sensitive to the gossip of others. 

The cause of this is evidently that each man perceives 
only those elements which exist in his own mind, and if 
any foreign element enters, it is immediately tinctured 
and colored by the former. The world is a mirror where¬ 
in every man may see his own face. To him whose soul 
is beautiful, the world will look beautiful ; to him whose 
soul is deformed, everything will seem to be evil. 

The impressions made on the mind by the effects of the 
imagination may be powerful and lasting upon the person. 
They may change or distort the features, they may render 
the hair white in a single hour; they may mark, kill, dis- 


IMAGINATION. 


>53 


figure, or break the bones of the unborn child, and make the 
effects of injuries received by one person visible upon the 
body of another with whom that person is in sympathy. 
They may act more powerfully than drugs ; they cause and 
cure diseases, induce visions and hallucinations, and may 
produce stigmata in so-called saints. Imagination performs 
its miracles, either consciously or unconsciously, in all 
departments of nature. By altering the surroundings of 
animals at such times their color can be changed at will. 
The tiger’s stripes are said to correspond with the long 
jungle grass, and the leopard’s spots resemble the speckled 
light falling through the leaves.* The forces of nature, 
influenced by the imagination of man, act on the imagina¬ 
tion of nature, and create tendencies on the astral plane, 
which, in the course of evolution, find expression through 
material forms. In this way man’s vices or virtues be¬ 
come objective realities, and as man’s mind becomes puri¬ 
fied, the earth becomes more beautiful and refined, while 
his vices find their expression in poisonous reptiles and 
noxious plants. 

The soul of the world has its animal elementary exist¬ 
ences, corresponding to those existing in the animal soul 
of man. Either are the products of thought-evolution. 
The Elementals in the soul of man are the products of the 
action of the thought in the individual mind of man ; the 
elemental forms in the soul of the world are the products 
of the collective thoughts of all beings. Animal elemen¬ 
tary powers are attracted to the germs of animals, and 
grow into objective visible animal form, and modify the 
characters and also the outward appearance of the animals 
of our globe. We therefore see that as the imagination of 
the Universal Mind changes during the course of ages, 
old forms disappear and new ones come into existence. 
Perhaps if there were no snakes in human forms, the 
snakes of the animal kingdom would cease to exist. 

But the impressions made on the mind do not end with 
the life of the individual on the physical plane. A cause 
which produces a sudden terror, or otherwise acts strongly 
on the imagination, may produce an impression that not 
only lasts through life but beyond it. A person, for 
instance, who during his life has strongly believed in the 

* Sir John Lubbock: “Proceedings of the British Association.” 


1 54 


OBJECTIFIED THOUGHTS. 


existence of eternal damnation and hell-fire, may, at his 
entrance into the subjective state after death, actually 
behold all the terrors of hell which his imagination during 
life has conjured up. There may have been no premature 
burial, the physical body may have been actually dead; 
but the terrified soul, seeing before it all the horrors of its 
own vivid imagination, rushes back again into the deserted 
body and clings to it in despair, seeking protection. 
Personal consciousness returns, and it finds itself alive in 
the grave, where it may pass a second time through the 
pangs of death, or, by sending out its astral form in search 
of sustenance from the living, it may become a vampire, 
and prolong for a while its horrible existence.* Such 
misfortunes are by no means rare, and the best remedy 
for it is knowledge or the cremation of the body soon after 
death. 

In the state after death the imagination neither creates 
new and original forms nor is it capable of receiving new 
impressions ; but it—so to say—lives on the sum of the 
impressions accumulated during life, which may evolute 
innumerable variations of mental estates, symbolized in 
their corresponding subjective forms, and lasting a longer 
or shorter period until their forces are exhausted. These 
mental states may be called illusive in the same sense as 
the forms and events of the physical life may be called 
illusive, and life in “ heaven ” or “ hell ” may be called a 
dream, in the same sense as life on the earth is called a 
dream. The dream of life only differs from the dream 
after death, that, during the former, we are able to make 
use of our will to guide and control our imagination and 
acts, while during the latter that guidance is wanting, and 
we earn that which we have sown, whether it is pleasant or 
not. No effort, whether for good or for evil, is ever lost. 
Those who have reached out in their imagination towards 
a high ideal on earth will find it in heaven ; those whose 
desires have dragged them down will sink to the level of 
their desires. 

It is said that the most material and sensual thoughts 
create forms in the subjective condition which will appear 
to him who created them, after he enters that sphere, even 


^Maximilian Perty : “ Die mystischen Erscheinungen in der Natur.” 



HAPPINESS. 


'55 


more gross, dense and material, than the material forms 
of the terrestrial world; nor does this seem incomprehen¬ 
sible, if we remember that everything is composed of 
thought-substance, and that the terms “ density,” “mate¬ 
riality,” etc., are merely relative terms. What appear to us 
dense and material now, may appear ethereal or vaporous, 
if we are in another state, and things which are invisible to 
us now may appear grossly material then. A due 
consideration of the relations existing between conscious¬ 
ness and what we call " matter ” will make it appear that 
there may be worlds more dense and material to its 
inhabitants than our physical world is to us; for it 
is the light of the spirit that enlivens matter, and 
the more matter is attracted by sensuality and con¬ 
centrated by selfishness, the less penetrable to the 
spirit will it become, and the more dense and hard will it 
grow, although it may for all that not be perceptible to our 
physical senses; the latter being adapted merely to our 
present state of existence. 

We should enter the higher life now, instead of waiting 
for it to come to us in the hereafter. The term “ heaven ” 
means a state of spiritual consciousness and enjoyment 
of spiritual truths; but how can he who has evolved no 
such consciousness and no spiritual power of perception 
enjoy the perception of things which he has not the power 
to perceive ? A man without that faculty entering heaven 
would be like a man blind and deaf and without the power 
to feel. Man can only enjoy that which he is able to 
realize, that which he cannot perceive does not exist for 
him. 

The surest way to be happy is to rise above all selfish 
considerations. People crave for amusement and pas¬ 
times ; but to forget one’s time is to forget one’s self, and 
by forgetting themselves they are rendered glad. People 
are rendered temporarily happy by illusions, because while 
they enjoy an illusion, they forget their own personal 
selves. The charm of music consists in the temporary 
absorption it causes to the personality in the harmony of 
sound. If we witness a theatrical performance and enter 
into the sprit of the play, we forget our personal sorrows 
and live—so to say—in the personality of the actor. The 
actor who understands how to absorb our attention, 
ibsorbs our personal consciousness and becomes inspired 


WORSHIP. 


* 5 * 

by our own enthusiasm ; an actor from whom the sympathy 
of the audience is withheld, will find it difficult to play his 
part well. An orator who is in full accord with his 
audience becomes inspired with the sentiments of his 
audience ; it is his audience that gives expressions of his 
feelings through him ; while he speaks he may forget the 
part he has intended to speak and give expression to that 
which his audience feels. Without being aware of it, we 
actually live and feel and think within each other. 

If we enter a cathedral or a temple, whose architecture 
inspires sublimity and solemnity, expanding the soul; 
where the language of music speaks to the heart, drawing 
it away from the attachment to the earth; if the beauty 
and odor of flowers lull the senses into a forgetfulness of 
self, such illusions may render us temporarily happy to an 
extent proportionate to the degree in which they succeed 
in destroying our consciousness of personality and self, 
and as such they are immeasurably better than other 
illusions that appeal to the lower personal self; but if we 
seek for the truth in the outward expression of a form, 
instead of looking for it in the principle which the ferm is 
to represent, we will be led into darkness instead of being 
led into light. For this reason the belief in external gods 
strengthens the illusions of self; they induce men to 
become cowards, to ask for favors which they do not 
deserve, in preference to other men that deserve them ; 
they help to establish the autocracy of priests, and to put 
the false priest upon a throne from which the true god has 
been excluded. Such misconceptions destroy the dignity 
of mankind, and a religious system based upon such prac¬ 
tices degrades men instead of elevating their character. 
He who has grown to live above the illusion of form and 
recognizes the existence of the true god in his heart, needs 
no illusions to guide his attention. He carries the temple 
of the eternal God in his own soul, and worships it without 
ceremonies and rites, by perpetual adoration. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONSCIOUSNESS. 

“ I am that I am .”—Bib It, 

Everything in the universe is a manifestation of mind ; 
for the universe itself is an expression of eternal wisdom. 
Everything therefore is mind ; possessing consciousness in 
the absolute, and being capable of manifesting relative con¬ 
sciousness. Consciousness in the Absolute means uncon¬ 
sciousness in relation to things. Absolute self-consciousness 
means the full realization of one’s own existences godlike 
state of self-existence, independent of any external object; a 
state of eternal life within one’s own light. Self-conscious¬ 
ness means the realization of one’s own existence indepen¬ 
dent of other things ; while relative consciousness means 
the realization of one’s own existence with reference to 
the objects of one’s perception. Unconscioustiess in the 
absolute is non-existence, a term without meaning; while 
relative unconsciousness means ignorance in regard to that 
of which one does not know that it exists. Consciousness 
means knowledge and life; unconsciousness is ignorance 
and death. An imperfect knowledge is a state of imperfect 
consciousness in relation to the object of knowledge ; the 
highest possible state of consciousness is the full realization 
of the truth. Consciousness means existence. Non-con¬ 
sciousness is non-existence,—nothing. Self-consciousness 

VS7 



RELATIVE CONSCIOUSNESS ,. 


I 5 S 

is self-existent, independent of any object. Relative exist¬ 
ence is the consciousness of the relation between subject 
and object. 

A thing has no existence relatively to ourselves before 
we become conscious of its existence. A person who does 
not realize his own existence is unconscious, and for 
the time being, to all practical purposes, as far as he him¬ 
self is concerned, dead. A state of existence is incompre¬ 
hensible unless it is experienced and realized, and it begins 
to be from the moment that it is realized. If a person 
were the legal possessor of millions of money and did not 
know it, he would have no means to dispose of it or enjoy 
it. A man may be present at the delivery of the most 
eloquent speech, and, unless he hears what is said, that 
speech will have no existence for him. Every man is 
endowed with reason and conscience, but if he never listens 
to its voice, the relation between him and his conscience 
will cease to exist, and it will die for him in proportion as 
he loses the power to hear it. Symbols have a meaning 
to him who understands their meaning, but for the ignorant 
nothing but the forms which he sees and feels exist; their 
meaning has no existence for him. 

A man may be alive and conscious in relation to one 
thing, and dead and unconscious rein lively to another. 
One set of his faculties may be active and conscious, while 
another set may be unconscious and its activity suspended. 
A person who listens attentively to music may be conscious 
of nothing but sound; one who is wrapt in the admiration 
of form is only conscious of seeing; another, who suffers 
from pain, may be conscious of nothing but the relation 
that exists between him and the sensation of pain. A man 
absorbed in thought may believe himself alone in the midst 
of a crowd. He may be threatened by destruction and be 
unconscious of the danger. He may have the strength of 
a lion, and it will avail him nothing unless he becomes 
conscious of it; he cannot be immortal unless he becomes 
conscious of immortal life. The more a person learns to 
realize the true state of his existence, the more will he 
become conscious of his existence. If he does not 
realize his true position, illusions will be the result. If he 
fully knows himself and his surroundings, he will be con¬ 
scious of his own powers, he will know how to exercise 
them and become strong. 


PERCEPTION ,; 


159 


To become conscious of the existence of a thing is to 
perceive it. To perceive it means to enter into relation 
with it, and to feel the existence of that relation. Life itself 
is a manifestation of consciousness ; motion is a manifest¬ 
ation of life. A thing without consciousness of any kind 
is unthinkable and could not exist. Even the most immov¬ 
able mountains are states of mind, corporified eternal 
thoughts, and as such they are expressions of consciousness. 
They feel the power of gravitation, and speak through the 
mouth of the echo. The body of our mother earth, although 
devoid of self-consciousness and intellectual reasoning, is 
nevertheless conscious of the presence of the sun, turning 
with incredible velocity around its axis; each of its parts 
strives to receive the full influence of his light, and after 
receiving his blessing gives way to another part to be 
blessed likewise. Stars and planets, worlds and molecules, 
are attracted toward each other, all by the action of eternal 
love, which could produce no reaction on absolute uncon¬ 
sciousness if such a thing could exist. 

Absolute self-consciousness belongs only to God. He 
alone is self-existent and independent of any outside con¬ 
ditions. He is self-sufficient, and needs nothing to excite 
consciousness or knowledge in Him. Man’s self-conscious¬ 
ness, in so far as the realization of a divine presence has 
not awakened within him, is as much an illusion on his 
imaginary self-existence, because it is then not his true 
real “ I,” but nature that has become self-conscious in 
him ; producing that ever changing and impermanent sense 
of the ego , which appears from hour to hour and from day 
to day chameleon-like under different attributes. This 
artificially produced ego is a mere nothing, and one proof 
of it is that the great majority of people continually re¬ 
quire some stimulus to enable them to know that they 
exist. If they are alone and without “ pastime ” they 
are miserable. If they are only in company with them¬ 
selves, they are then in company with nothing. Without 
an amusement of some kind they would become insane or 
die. 

But he, in whom the divine consciousness of his true 
inner self has awakened, will require no external stimulus 
to let him know that he lives. He may be shut up in a 
prison or in a tomb, he carries his own light with him; he 
cares little for the company of men, if he is in company 
with his God 


6o 


SLEEP. 


Man is an organism, in which either God or nature, or 
the antithesis of God, the devil, may become self-conscious. 
If only nature is self-conscious in him, he has then no real 
life or consciousness of his own. It is absurd of him to 
speak of dying, because he has never yet come to life. If 
God has become self-conscious in him, he will be one with 
God, whose temple he is, If the self-consciousness of the 
devil resides in his house, then is he a personal devil for 
all practical purposes and intents. 

From the moment that man becomes relatively conscious 
of the existence of a spiritual power within his soul, he 
enters into relationship to that power, he attains spiritual 
consciousness; but it may still be a long time until that 
power becomes fully alive and self-conscious in him. 

The vulgar have only the consciousness of the animal 
within themselves. It is the hog in one that is given to 
gluttony; the goat in another that is given to lewdness; 
the tiger in one that kills ; the snake in another that stings 
by the power of calumny; the fox in another from which 
he receives his cunning. They are houses which the master 
has never inhabited, or which he has deserted, and which 
are filled with animals. It is the animals that are living 
and acting in them, the persons themselves have no life. 

As everything that exists is of a threefold nature, so 
there are three modes of perception : the physical percep¬ 
tion, the perception of the soul, and the spiritual perception. 
The former reaches the surface of things, the second the 
soul, and the third reaches into their innermost centres. 
To see is to think with the organ of sight. A thought sent 
to the surface of the object of perception will see only the 
surface; a thought becoming conscious in the centre will 
see that which exists at the centre. 

Everything that exists, exists within the Universal Mind, 
and nothing can exist beyond it, because the Universal 
Mind includes all, and there is no “ beyond.’’ Percep¬ 
tion is a faculty by which mind learns to know what is 
going on within itself. Man can know nothing but what 
exists within his own mind. Even the most ardent lover 
has never seen his beloved one, he merely sees the image 
which the form of the latter produces in his or her mind. 

If we pass through the streets of a city the images of 
men and women pass review in our mind while their bodies 
meet our own ; but for the images which they produce 


INNER SENSES. 


161 


within our consciousness, we would know nothing about 
their existence. The images produced in the mind come to 
the consciousness whose seat is the brain ; if man’s con¬ 
sciousness were centered in some other part of his body, 
he would become conscious in that part of the sensations 
which he receives. He might, for instance, see with his 
stomach or hear with his fingers, as has been actually the 
case in some somnambulic states. 

From the relations existing between object and subject, 
physical senses came into existence. There could be no 
perception without resistance. If our bodies were per¬ 
fectly transparent to light we could not perceive the light, 
because light cannot illuminate itself. The Astral Light 
penetrates our bodies, but we are not able to see it with 
our physical eyes, because the physical body offers no 
resistance to it; but when the physical body begins to 
sleep, and life retires from the outer into the inner man, 
the astral man may become conscious of the existence of 
that higher light, and see it like beautiful stars, or sheets of 
light, resembling the electric light falling through a crystal 
globe. 

At the time when we fall asleep, consciousness gradually 
leaves its seat in the brain and merges into the conscious¬ 
ness of the “ inner man.” It may then begin to realize 
another state of existence; and if a part of the conscious¬ 
ness still remain with the brain, the perception of the inner 
consciousness may come to the cognizance of the lower 
personal self. We may, therefore, in that half-conscious 
state, between sleeping and waking, when our conscious¬ 
ness is—so to say—oscillating between two states of exist¬ 
ence, receive important revelations from the higher state 
and retain them in the memory of the external self. The 
more our consciousness merges in that higher state, the 
better will we realize the higher existence, but the impres¬ 
sions upon our personal self will become dim and perhaps 
not be remembered; but as long as the greatest part of 
our consciousness is active within the material brain, the 
perceptions of the higher state will only be dim and mixed 
up with memories and sensations of the lower state of 
existence; the images will be confused. 

When the turmoil of external life ceases and the external 
senses come to rest, then is the time for the inner senses 
to become more active, and then the neophyte may enjoy 

6 


162 


HAUNTED HOUSES. ' 


communion with his master, the divine Adonai. Then 
may he receive lessons from the world of the spirit, and 
problems that were too difficult for him to be solved while 
his external senses were fully alive may now become clear 
to him in his “ sleep,” and even be remembered when he 
“ awakens ” again to external life. 

The tranquillity of the outer senses facilitates the action 
of the inner senses. It is said of Socrates, that he once 
stood for eighteen hours immovable and absorbed in 
thought; but in the fully illuminated seer, the external and 
internal consciousness are as one. Jacob Boehme was in 
a state of divine illumination for three weeks, and followed 
during that time his occupation as a shoemaker. 

Life, sensation, perception and consciousness may be 
withdrawn from the physical body and become active in 
the astral body of man. The astral man may then become 
conscious of his own existence independent of the physical 
body, and develop his faculties of sense. He may then see 
sights which have no existence for the physical eye, he 
may hear sounds that the physical ear cannot hear, he may 
feel, taste, and smell things whose existence the physical 
senses cannot realize, and which consequently have no 
existence to them. 

What an astonishing sight would meet the eyes of a 
mortal, if the veil that mercifully hides the astral world 
from his sight were to be suddenly removed ! He would 
see the space which he inhabits occupied by a different 
world full of inhabitants, of whose existence he knew 
nothing. What before appeared to him dense and solid 
would now seem to be shadowy, and what seemed to him 
like air space he would find peopled with life. 

All houses are “ haunted,” but not all persons are equally 
able to see the ghosts that haunt them, because to perceive 
things on the astral plane requires the development of a 
sense adapted to such perceptions. Thoughts are “ ghosts,” 
and only those that can see thoughts can see “ ghosts,” 
unless the latter are sufficiently materialized to refract the 
light and to become visible to the eye. 

Nor is it necessary that the person whose “ghost” 
haunts a house should have died. There are many living 
persons whose spirits haunt the houses which they formerly 
inhabited. Each thought, expressed with a certain intensity 
of will; each curse and each blessing that comes from the 


SEEING IS FEELING . 


163 

heart, gives birth to a spirit that may haunt a place and 
even produce external and visible effects under certain 
conditions. 

We may feel the presence of an astral form without 
being able to see it, and be just as certain of its presence 
as if we did behold it with our eyes; for the sense of feel¬ 
ing is not less reliable than the sense of sight. The pre¬ 
sence of a holy, high, and exalted idea that enters the 
mind fills it with a feeling of happiness, with an exhila¬ 
rating influence whose vibrations may be perceived long 
after that thought has gone. 

Each human being may be looked upon as an unlimited 
sphere of consciousness with a visible centre. Each 
resembles a living ?iebula , of which only the solid kernel 
is visible. Visible man is not all there is of man ; but 
surrounded by an invisible mental atmosphere, comparable 
to the pulp surrounding the seed in a fruit; but this light, 
or atmosphere, or pulp, is the mind of man, an organized 
ocean of spiritual substance, wherein all things exist. If 
man were conscious of his own greatness, he would know 
that within himself exists the sun and the moon and the 
starry sky and every object in space, because his true self 
is God and God is without limits. 

To see a thing is identical with feeling it with the mind. 
The mind of man extends through space ; it is therefore not 
merely the images of things we see but the things them¬ 
selves that exist within the periphery of our mind, however 
distant from the centre of our consciousness they may be ; 
and if we were able to shift that centre from one place to 
another within the sphere of the mind, we might in a 
moment of time approach to the object of our perception. 

If you throw a handful of sand into a quiet lake, does 
not every grain form a centre of motion upon the surface, 
from whence proceed concentric waves in all directions ? 
Can you tell where the realm of one such motion is limited, 
and do they not all move in the same lake ? Likewise each 
individual being constitutes a centre of consciousness in 
the sea of eternity, whose ripples of thought extend into 
the depths of the infinite mind. 

As it is, the centre of consciousness of normally con¬ 
stituted man is located in the brain, and, if the mind feels 
an object, the impressions have to travel all the way to the 
brain. If we look at a distant star our mind is actually 


164 


TRANSFER OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 


there and in contact with it, and if we could transfer out 
consciousness to that place of contact, we would be our¬ 
selves upon that star and perceive the objects thereon as 
if we were standing personally upon its surface. 

If we were not able to feel with the mind, we would not 
be able to become conscious of the character of the things 
we see and whose qualities are invisible to us; but the 
individual spheres of beings enter and pervade each other 
and exchange their sensations like the circular rings pro¬ 
duced if a handful of pebbles is thrown into a lake. 

Perception is passive unagination , because if we perceive 
an object, the relation which it bears to us comes to our 
consciousness without any active exertion on our part. 
But there is an active perception or imagination by which 
we may enter into a relation with a distant object in space 
by a transfer of consciousness. By this power we may act 
upon a distant object if we succeed in forming a true image 
of it in our own consciousness. By concentrating our 
consciousness upon such an object we become conscious 
in that place of the sphere of mind where that object exists. 
Instead of perceiving an already existing relation we 
establish consciously a relation between such an object and 
ourselves. If I can form in my mind a true image of an 
absent person, and cling to it with my will, I am then 
identified in my mind with that person, and am actually 
with him or her. My real “ I ” is everywhere, and wherever 
I locate my consciousness, there am I consciously myself, 
all except the physical form. How could I be nearer to a 
friend than to be in perfect harmony with his soul, and 
identified with him in his own consciousness ? 

Consciousness is existence, and there are as many states 
of consciousness as there are states of existence. Every 
living being has a consciousness of its own, the result of its 
sensations, and the state of its consciousness changes every 
moment of time, as fast as the impressions which it receives 
change; because its consciousness is the perception of the 
relation it bears to things, and as this relation changes, 
consciousness changes its character. 

If our whole attention is taken up by animal pleasure, we 
exist in an animal state of consciousness; if we are aware 
of the presence of spiritual principles, such as hope, faith, 
charity, justice, truth, etc., in their highest aspects, we live 
in our spiritual consciousness, and between the two 


SELF CONSCIOUSNESS. 


165 


extremes there are a great variety of gradations. Con¬ 
sciousness itself does not change, it only moves up and 
down on the scale of existence. 

There is only one kind of consciousness which never 
changes its form, because its relation to things never 
changes, it being in relation with nothing except with 
itself. It is the divine consciousness of existence per se , 
the realization of the I am. It cannot change, because 
existence per se never changes; its change would involve 
non-existence or the annihilation of all. 

When the Absolute One Life becomes relative in a form 
the degree of its manifestation depends on the state of the 
activity of life expressed in the organization of its form. 
In a low organized form there may be sensation, but there 
is no intelligence. An oyster has sensation and con¬ 
sciousness, but no intelligence and no power of discrimin¬ 
ation. A man may have a great deal of intellect and no 
consciousness of the existence of spirituality, sublimity, 
justice, beauty, or truth. If these divine principles have 
become fully alive and self-conscious in him ; then, and 
only then, is he in possession of Divine Wisdom. 

The lowest existences follow implicitly the laws of nature 
or of Universal Wisdom; they have no wisdom of their 
own. The highest spiritual beings follow their own wisdom; 
but their wisdom is identical with the universal law. The 
difference between the lowest beings and the highest ones 
is, therefore, that the lowest ones perform the will of God 
unconsciously and unknowingly; while the highest ones 
do the same thing knowingly and consciously. It is only 
the intermediary beings between the lowest and highest 
who imagine that they are their own law-givers, and may 
do what they please. 

The muscular system exercises its habitual movements 
in the act of walking, eating, etc., without being especially 
guided by a superintending intellect, like a clockwork 
that, after being once set in motion, continues to run ; and 
a man who is in the habit of doing that which is right and 
just, will act in accordance with the law of justice instinct¬ 
ively, and without any consideration or doubt. 

Each state or existence has its own mode of perception, 
sensation, instinct, consciousness and memory, and the 
activity of one may overpower and suppress that of the 
other. A person being only conscious of the sensations 


f66 


WISDOM, 


created by some physical act, is at that time unconscious 
of spiritual attractions. One who is under the influence of 
chloroform may lose all his external sensation of pain, and 
yet be conscious of his surroundings. One in a state of 
trance may be fully awake on a higher plane of existence, 
and entirely unconscious of what happens on the physical 
plane. The muscular system may be semi-conscious and 
overpower the intellect, or the conscious and intelligent 
brain may control the muscular system. 

A person may climb up to the most dizzy heights of a 
tower or a mountain peak, and if there is a rail or a stair¬ 
case to afford him even an imaginary protection, he will 
not be very liable to become overpowered by the sense of 
danger. His intellect may be aware of danger, but reason 
teaches the unreasoning animal man, filling the muscular 
system with the sensation of security, and he will not be 
very liable to fall. But if you remove the protection, the 
sensation of danger presenting itself before the mind 
impresses the unreasoning animal instincts with the over¬ 
powering illusion of fear, and danger may become immi¬ 
nent. The body becomes conscious of the attraction of 
the chasm, the intellect too weak to guide the will to resist 
the tendency of the excited body to follow that attraction, 
and the person may fall. 

The unintelligent muscular system is conscious of 
nothing else but the attraction of Earth. In it the element 
of Earth predominates, and unless it is upheld by the 
intellect and will, it seeks to act according to the impulse 
created in it by that attraction. The astral body per se is 
unintelligent, and unless infused with the intelligence 
coming from the higher principles, it follows the attrac¬ 
tions of the astral plane. These attractions are the 
emotions created by desires. As the physical body, if 
unguided by reason, may fall and perish by the fall, so the 
astral body, following the attractions of love and hate, 
may refuse to obey the intelligent principle of man, and 
seek its own destruction. The animal consciousness of 
man is that unreasoning brute instinct which impels him 
to seek for the gratification of his natural desires. 

Correctly speaking, there is no such thing as animal 
reason, animal intellect, animal consciousness, etc. Con¬ 
sciousness, reason, intelligence, etc., in the absolute, have 
no qualifications ; they are universal principles, that is to 


ATTRACTION. 


167 


say, functions of the Universal One Life , manifesting 
themselves on various planes in mineral, vegetable, animal, 
human, astral and transcendental forms. 

The condition of a person whose consciousness is no 
more illuminated by reason, is seen in cases of emotional 
mania, and sometimes in cases of actual obsession. In 
such cases the person will act entirely according to the 
impulses acting upon his lower consciousness, and when 
he recovers his reason, be entirely unconscious of his 
actions during that state. Such states manifest themselves 
in only one person, or they may simultaneously affect 
several persons, and even whole countries, becoming epi¬ 
demic by the law of induction, as has been experienced in 
some wholesale “ obsessions ” occuning during the Middle 
Ages.* They are often observed in cases of hysteria, may 
be witnessed at religious meetings, during theatrical per¬ 
formances, during the attack upon an enemy, or at any 
other occasion, where the passions of the multitude are 
excited, inducing them to acts of folly or bravery, and 
enabling people to perform acts which they would be 
neither willing nor able to perform if they were guided 
only by the calculations of their intellect. 

Merely imaginary self-consciousness exist; when thought 
and will are divided. We then live in our imagi¬ 
nation ; but the will is dormant and inactive. Only when 
will and thought become united and act as one then will 
true self-consciousness become manifest. The self-con¬ 
scious will, receiving its light from thought, is a god or a 
devil according to its tincture. In its full development it 
is a power beyond the comprehension of normal man. It 
enables its possessor to blend his own consciousness with 
that of any other person, to enter into communication with 
any other person in any part of the world, although that 
other person may not become aware of his presence, 
unless he has developed his own power of spiritual per¬ 
ception to a certain extent. If we steadily concentrate 
our thought upon a person or a place, the highest thought- 
energies, residing in the fifth principle of man, will actually 
visit that place, because thought is not bound by the laws 
of gross matter regarding time and space, and we are able 
to think of a far-off place as quick as of one that is near. 


* “ Histoire des diables de Loudin.” 



168 


WILL AND THOUGHT. 


Our thoughts go to the desired locality, for that locality 
however far it may be, is still within the sphere of mind. 
If we have been there before, or if there is something to 
attract us, it will not be difficult to find it. But under 
ordinary circumstances our consciousness remains with 
the body. We may even realize our presence at the place 
which we visit, but on returning to our normal state we 
cannot remember it, because the semi-material principles 
of our soul, in which resides memory, have not been there 
to collect impressions and transfer them to the physical 
brain. But if our will has become one with our thought 
so as to accompany the latter, then our consciousness may 
go with them, being projected there by the power of the 
will, and illuminated by thought. We shall then visit the 
chosen place consciously and know what we are doing, and 
our astral elements may carry our memory back and im¬ 
press them upon our physical brain. The reason why such 
things sometimes take place at the time of death, and the 
conscious appearance of the dying person occurs at a 
distant place, to visit a friend, is because at the time of 
dying the will becomes again free and unites with the 
thought of the person, thus forming a veritable spirit, a 
union of will and thought. 

It sometimes happens that the “ double ” of a sleeping 
person is attracted to a distant place ; acting, however, 
like an automaton, without intelligence. This simply shows 
that the will of the person was not set free. His thought 
was there, but not his conscious will; nor could the will 
leave the sleeping body of a person that has not become 
sufficiently spiritual, because the will is the life , and if it 
were to leave the form the body would die. 

There are a great number of cases on record where, 
in consequence of a sudden and intense emotion, for 
instance, the desire to see a certain person, the will has 
become prominently active, and projecting itself from the 
physical body has rendered the thought of the person con¬ 
scious and visible at a distance. In cases of home-sickness 
we find some approach to an instance of this. The person 
separated from home and friends, having an intense yearn¬ 
ing to see his native place again, projects his thoughts and 

his unconscious will to that place. He lives—so to say_ 

spiritually in that place, while his physical body vegetates 
in another. The life-elements pass more and more to these 


(NTOXICA TION. 


169 


astral elements at the expense of the life-elements necessary 
to supply the wants of the physical body. There seem to 
be nothing particularly important the matter with the 
patient, he has a little fever, becomes weaker, and finally 
dies—that is to say, he goes where he desires to go, 
although his gradual going is imperceptible and unrecogniz¬ 
able to physical senses. 

Sometimes in cases of sickness a similar process takes 
place. When, from whatever cause, the union between the 
physical form and the astral body becomes weakened, the 
astral form may separate itself for a while or permanently 
from the physical form and follow a stronger attraction, and 
in such cases it may be seen by persons gifted with second 
sight. 

The symptoms of such a beginning of separation may 
often be observed in cases of severe sickness, when the 
patient has the sensation as if another person were lying in 
the same bed with him, and as if that person were in some 
way connected with him, and he would have to take care 
of the latter. As recovery takes place, the principles 
whose cohesion has been loosened become reunited, and 
that sensation disappears. 

A higher state of consciousness than that of the normal 
state is often observed in cases of trance and somnambu¬ 
lism ; a lower state than the normal one is witnessed in 
cases of drunkenness or intoxication of some kind. 

A case is cited in Dr. Hammond’s book on insanity, in 
which a servant, while in a state of intoxication, carried a 
package with which he had been entrusted to the wrong 
house. Having become sober, he could not remember the 
place, and the package was supposed to be lost; but after 
he got drunk again he remembered the place, he went 
there and recovered the package. This goes to show that 
when he was drunk he was another person than when he 
was sober; man’s individuality continually changes accord¬ 
ing to the conditions in which he exists, and as his con¬ 
sciousness changes he becomes another individual, although 
he still retains the same outward form. Instead of getting 
drunk a man may become full of the wine of the spirit. In 
that case he may, while in that state, write down very high 
and exalted ideas, which he may not fully remember after 
his return to his normal state, and perhaps he may then not 
even understand his own writings. 


TRANCE. 


170 

If a person is in the hypnotic state, subject to the will 
“ magnetizer,” it is the consciousness of the latter 
which takes possession of the former, and uses his mental 
organism as if it were his own. If a hypnotizer causes his 
subject to commit a crime, it is he who commits it through 
the instrumentality of the hypnotized; if a medium lies, it 
is the lying thoughts of him who consults the medium that 
are echoed back through the latter, nor could he be a 
genuine medium if he did not reflect lies as well as the 
truth. 

All men are mirrors, in which the world is reflected ; all 
men are mirrors reflecting each other’s thoughts and 
acting them out. Experience shows, that there is not a 
day in the year that not some hypnotizer consciously or un¬ 
consciously commits a crime through another person ; and 
while the real culprit goes scot free, the weak-minded 
instrument is punished. Thousands of marriages are the 
outcome of “ hypnotization.” Man exists as an individual 
only as long as he is in possession of divine reason, and 
this reason is not an attribute of the human form, but a 
function of the divine Spirit which illuminates it. 

In the state of trance the consciousness is entirely con¬ 
centrated on the higher planes, and the mind may even 
forget the existence of the physical body. In the state of 
intoxication the person may only be conscious of his animal 
existence and entirely unconscious of his higher self. A 
somnambule in the lucid condition looks upon her body as 
a being distinct from her own self, who is, to a certain ex¬ 
tent, under her care. She speaks of that being in the third 
person, prescribes sometimes for it as a physician prescribes 
for his patient, and often shows tastes, inclinations and 
opinions entirely opposed to those which she possesses in 
her normal condition. Somnambules often give promises 
which they fulfil when they return to their normal condi¬ 
tion, although, when they awake, they do not remember of 
ever having made any promise at all. 

If man’s consciousness changes from one state to another, 
his tastes and inclinations change accordingly. While his 
thoughts revel in animal pleasures, the realm of the spirit 
will be closed to him, nor will he desire to enter it; if he 
has once attained the power to perceive the things of the 
spirit, animal pleasures and the knowledge of which terres¬ 
trial science is proud will appear absolutely worthless to 


THE HIGHEST STATE. 


t 7 i 

him. Persons while in a trance may love another person 
intensely, because they are then capable to perceive his 
interior qualities, and they may detest him when they are in 
their normal condition, because they then merely behold 
his external attributes.* 

This higher self, which often seems to care so little for 
che earthly troubles that vex and perplex the lower self, is 
the real man, who continues to live when the body of the 
person with which he is connected during life no longer 
exists. It is the individual which, through a long chain of 
reincarnations, has become connected with many person¬ 
alities, extracting from each the elements which are worthy 
to be preserved, and assimilating them with his own. Only 
few persons mentioned in history have succeeded in uniting 
their personality with their own divine and impersonal 
Atma. Such that have succeeded are the truly enlightened, 
and require no more incarnations. 

The highest state of spiritual consciousness is the full 
and complete realization of divine truth. Even while 
physical consciousness is active the consciousness of the 
higher principles may be so exalted as to render the body 
little conscious of pain. History speaks of men and 
women whose souls rejoiced while their earthly tabernacles 
were undergoing the tortures of the rack, or were devoured 
by flames at the stake. 

Man leads essentially two lives, one while he is fully 
awake, another while he is fully asleep. Each has its own 
perceptions, consciousness and experiences, but the ex¬ 
periences of that state, called “deep sleep,” are not 
remembered when we are fully “ awake.” At the border¬ 
land between sleep and waking, where the impressions of 
each state meet and mingle, is the realm of confused 
dreams, which are usually remembered, and seldom con¬ 
tain any truth. 

This state is, however, favorable to receive impressions 
from the higher self, or to see the pictures existing in the 
astral light. In the former case the higher self may use 
symbolical forms and allegorical images to convey ideas 
to the lower self, and to give it admonitions, forebodings, 
and warnings in regard to future events; in the latter case 
faces and forms of persons that previously occupied the 


• H. Zschokke : “ Verklaerungen” (Transfigurations). 



172 


DREAMS. 


room of the sleeper may be seen, or his mind may warnki 
to scenes to which he is unconsciously attracted. 

There are, however, various kinds of dreams, and it 
would be wrong to deny that some of them may not be 
useful. The higher self may make use of the impressi¬ 
bility of the lower self during the time of half-conscious 
slumber to impress it with useful visions and warn it of 
danger, and to teach it lessons which the lower self would 
not be able to understand while his physical senses are fully 
active and the voice of intuition drowned in the noise of 
the struggle produced by the contending emotions. Many 
a difficult problem has been solved during sleep, and the 
terrestrial world is not always without any reflex of the 
light from above. The mind of the sleeper during the 
sleep of the body may come into contact with other minds, 
and pass through experiences which he does not remember 
when he awakes. Man, in his waking condition, often 
has experiences which he afterwards does not remember, 
but which he, nevertheless, enjoyed at the time when they 
occurred, and which at that time were real to him.* 

* Man has not only a double consciousness, but he leads two lives 
which are separate and yet one. Each of these lives has its own 
experiences, and if while in one state we do not remember the 
experiences of the other state, this does not disprove the truth of our 
assertion. A man may live and undergo certain experiences in a certain 
place, while his body is asleep, or unconscious, or half-conscious in 
another place ; and if the physical body returns to its normal state, it 
may or may not remember what happened to him while he was in the 
other state. But there aie some exceptional cases, in which the con¬ 
sciousness of both states may become blended, and then the person may 
remember where he had been and what he had been doing while in that 
other case. One of such extraordinary cases is mentioned in A. P. 
Sinnett’s “ Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky.” Speaking of 
her sickness in Tiflis. Madame Blavatsky says, that she had the sensation 
as if she were two different persons, one being the Madame Blavatsky 
whose body was lying sick in bed, the other person an entirely different 
and superior being. “When I was in my lower state,” she says, “ I 
knew who that other person was and what she (or he) had been doing ; 
but when 1 was that other being myself, I did not know nor care who 
was that Madame Blavatsky.” It is therefore very well possible that 
Madame Blavatsky’s “ transcendental Ego” with all its consciousness, 
faculties, and powers of perception, in fact, her real self\ was consciously 
and really undergoing certain mysterious experiences in Tibet, while 
the physical instrument, which we call “ Madame Blavatsky,” was sick 
at Tiflis ; but such an explanation will be incomprehensible to those 
persons who imagine the physical body of a person to be the whole of 


DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 


*73 


A mixture of the various states of sensations and per¬ 
ceptions produces the normal consciousness of man. Man 
feels in himself at least two sets of attractions that come 
tc his consciousness, the “ earthly ” and the “ fiery ” ele¬ 
ments. One set drags him down to earth and makes him 
cling with a firm grasp to material necessities and enjoy¬ 
ments, the other set, lifting him up into the region of the 
unknown, makes him forget the allurements of matter, and 
by bringing him nearer to the realm of abstract ideas of 
the good, the true, and the beautiful, gives him satisfaction 
and happiness. The greatest poets and philosophers have 
recognized this fact of double consciousness, or the two 
poles of one, and between those two poles ebbs and floods 
the normal consciousness of the average human being. 

Goethe expresses this in his “ Faust ” in about the fol¬ 
lowing terms :— 

Two souls, alas ! are conscious in my breast, 

Each from the other tries to separate. 

One clings to earth, attracted by desire, 

The other rises upward,” etc. 

One attraction arises from Spirit, another from matter. 
By the power of Reason Man is enabled to choose which 
way he will follow, and by the power of his Will he is 
enabled to follow his choice. He may concentrate his 
consciousness entirely on the lower plane, and sinking into 
sensuality, become entirely unconscious of the existence of 
higher aspirations, or he may live entirely in the higher 
planes of thought and feeling, grow to realize fully the 
beauties, realities, and truths of the spirit, and become dead 
to the attractions of matter. A self-centered and narrow- 


his person, and his physical form to be his own real self Only when 
the relations existing between the higher and lower self will be fully 
understood by our would-be philosophers will their eyes become 
opened to a realization of the truth that man’s phenomenal terrestrial 
self is nothing else but a temporary illusion, a bundle of ever-changing 
powers and principles held together by the power of the divine Spirit, 
and endowed by the latter with the faculty to perceive, to think, to will 
and to remember ; a fleeting cloud of living matter, illuminated for the 
time being by the light of the spirit, a mere instrument through which 
impersonal forces act; while the real self of man exists in another region 
of thought, and is known only to those who are passing through the 
process of spiritual regeneration. 



*74 


REASON. 


minded man may have his consciousness narrowed down 
to a small sphere ; a great and liberal mind may expand it 
without any limits, until the whole of space will appear to 
him to be filled with his own consciousness, and his power 
of perception will enable him to penetrate all the mysteries 
in Nature. Few may be able to reach such a state, and 
few will be able to comprehend its possibility ; but there 
have been men who, on the threshold of Nirwana, were 
able to concentrate the powers of their minds in centres 
beyond the attraction of earth, and while their physical 
bodies continued to live on this planet, the divine self, 
leaving its human form, could consciously roam through 
the interplanetary spaces and see the wonders of the 
material and spiritual worlds. This is the highest form of 
Adeptship attainable on earth, and to him who accomplishes 
it the mysteries of the Universe will be like an open 
book. 

Every man and woman, however, can feel within their 
souls the presence of the divine Spirit, even if they cannot 
yet see its light. This is the beginning of that true spirit¬ 
ual consciousness, to which we should cling at all times and 
which finds its expression in the adoration of the highest 
good. Still such states are yet far from spiritual self- 
consciousness, which is a full realization of individual 
existence within the spiritual realm, and as such is known 
only to few. Even the most devout worshipper, as long 
as the divine Spirit has not awakened within his soul, will 
merely feel the beauties of the spiritual realm in the same 
sense as a blind man may enjoy the warm rays of the 
sunshine without being able to see the light; only when 
the process of spiritual regeneration has fairly begun will 
he be able to see the sun of glory within his own soul, and 
the illusive self-consciousness of his former state which 
caused him to believe that he was a permanent being, will 
be transformed into that real self-conscious state in which 
he becomes self-luminous in the light of the Truth, a state 
in which man actually knows that he exists as an eternal, 
self-existent and immortal power in God. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

DEATH. 

tl Omne bonum a Deo, imperfectum a Diabalo/'— Paracelsus. 

Consciousness is knowledge and life ; unconsciousness is 
ignorance and death. If we are conscious of the existence 
of a thing, a relation exists between ourselves and that 
thing. If we are unconscious of its existence, neither we 
nor that object ceases to exist, but there is no relation 
between us. As soon as we begin to realize that relation, 
the character of the object perceived in the sphere of our 
mind becomes a part of our mental constitution, and we 
begin to live in relation to it. We then possess it in our 
consciousness. If we lose its possession, we may regain it 
by the power of recollection and memory. To know an 
object is to live relatively to it, to forget it is to die in 
relation to it. 

Unconsciousness, ignorance and death are, therefore, 
synonymous terms, and every one is dead in proportion as 
he is ignorant. If he is ignorant of a fact, he is dead 
relatively to it, although he may be fully alive in many 
other respects. We cannot be conscious of everything at 
once, and, therefore, as our impressions and thoughts 
change, our consciousness and relation to certain things 
change, and we continually die relatively to some things 
and begin to live relatively to others. Relative death and 
unconsciousness occurs every moment, and we are not 
aware of its occurrence. We meet hundreds of corpses in 
the streets, which are entirely dead and unconscious in 
regard to certain things of which we are conscious, and 
relatively to which we are alive ; and we may be dead in 


176 


PROLONGING LIFE. 


regard to many things to which others are alive and con¬ 
scious. Only simultaneously occurring omniscience in 
regard to everything that exists would be absolute life 
without any admixture of death. 

Each principle in man has a certain sphere of conscious¬ 
ness, and its perceptions can only extend to the limits of 
that sphere. Each is dead to such modes of activity as 
are in no relation with it. Minerals are unconscious of 
the action of intelligence, but not of the attraction of Earth; 
spirit is dead to earthly attraction, but not to spiritual 
principles. If we can change the mode of activity in a 
form, we call into existence a new state of consciousness, 
because we establish new relations of a different order; 
the old activity then dies and a new one begins to live. 

If the energy which we are now using for the purpose 
of digesting food, for performing intellectual labor and 
for enjoying sensual pleasures, were used for the purpose 
of developing spirituality, we would be in a comparatively 
short time rewarded for our labor by becoming superior 
beings, of a state so far above our present condition, that 
we can at present not even conceive of it. 

In the constitution of average man life is especially active 
in the animal body, and he clings to the life of that body 
as if it were the only possible mode of existence. He 
knows of no other mode of life, and is afraid to die. A 
person whose centre of life and consciousness is in his 
astral body will be conscious of another existence, and his 
physical body will be only so far of value to him, as by its 
instrumentality he may act on the physical plane. 
Physical death is a continuation of the activity of life in 
higher principles. If we, by some occult process, could 
concentrate all our life into our higher principles before 
our body ceases to live, we might step in advance of death 
and live independent of our physical body. 

Such a transfer of life and consciousness is not beyond 
possibility. It has been accomplished by some, and will 
be accomplished by others. The material elements of the 
physical body are continually subject to elimination and 
renewal. By restricting the renewal of these elements 
within the limits of the utmost necessity, and at the same 
time withdrawing our consciousness from the exterior and 
concentrating it upon the interior plane, we may, in course 
of time, change the compound parts of the physical body 


SEPARA TION OF PRINCIPLES . 


177 


into more ethereal ones, until its physical molecules become 
entirely replaced by finer elements belonging to the astral 
plane, when its organization will require no more food 
from the physical plane, and become invisible to the 
physical eye.* It would, however, be absurd to suppose 
that immortality could be obtained by means of gymnastic 
exercises and semi-starvation and without an awakening of 
the inner life. If the divine life awakens in man, the 
grossly animal elements in his constitution will die and 
disappear without any external aid. 

No one would be willing to look upon such a change 
as death, and yet it would be nothing else but a mode of 
dying slow as far as the physical body is concerned, while 
at the same time it is a resurrection of the real man into a 
superior form of existence. Death—whether slow or 
quick—is nothing but a process of purification, by which 
the imperfect is eliminated and rendered unconscious. 
Nothing perishes but that which is not able to live. 
Principles cannot die, only their forms disappear. 

Only that which is perfect can remain without being 
changed. Truth, wisdom, justice, beauty, goodness, etc., 
cannot be changed ; it is merely the forms in which they 
become manifest that can be destroyed. If all the wise 
men in the world were to die in one moment, the principle 
of Wisdom would nevertheless exist, and manifest itself 
in due time in other receptive forms ; if Love were to leave 
the hearts of all human beings, it would thereby not be 
annihilated, it would merely cease to exist relatively 
to men, and men would cease to live while love would 
continue to be. Eternal principles are self-existent, and 
therefore independent of forms, and not subject to change; 
but forms are changeable, and cannot continue without 
the presence of the principles whose instruments for 
manifestation they represent. 

The human body is an instrument for the manifestation 
of life, the soul is an instrument for the manifestation of 
spirit. If the life leaves the body, the latter begins to 
disintegrate; if the spirit leaves the soul, the latter begins 
to dissolve. A person in whom the spiritual principle has 
become entirely inactive is spiritually dead, although his 
body may be full of life and his soul full of animal desires. 


The Theosophist: “Elixir of Life.** 


i 7 8 


GOD IS IMMORTAL, 


Such spiritless living corpses are often seen in fashionable 
society as well as in the crowds where the vulgar assemble. 
A person in whom the principle of reason has become 
inactive is intellectually dead, although his body may be 
full of animal life ; lunatics are dead people, in whom only 
the non-intellectual or semi-intellectual principles con¬ 
tinue to live. If the soul leaves the body, the latter dies 
but the soul lives. If the soul dies, God continues to 
be. 

The soul, like the body, is a compound organism, com¬ 
posed of various elements. Some of these elements may 
be fit to receive the Light of the spirit, others are not fit 
to do so. If, therefore, a person, during his earthly life 
has not purified his soul sufficiently so as to enter the 
spiritual state immediately after the death of the physical 
body, a separation of the pure and impure elements from 
the still impure remains must take place in the state after 
death. When the final separation is accomplished, the 
spiritual elements enter the spiritual state (which, in fact, 
they have never left); and the lower elements, which may 
or may not possess a certain remnant of consciousness of 
their own, remain in the lower plane, where they gradually 
disintegrate. 

If the organization of the physical body becomes im¬ 
paired to such an extent that the principle of life cannot 
employ it any longer to serve as an instrument for its 
activity, it ceases to act. Death may begin at the head, 
the heart, or the lungs, but life lingers longest in the head, 
and it may still be active there to a certain extent after 
the body, to all exterior appearances, has become uncon¬ 
scious and ceased to live. The power of thought may 
continue for a time to work in its habitual manner, although 
sensation has ceased to exist in the nerves. This activity 
may even grow in intensity as the principles become 
disunited ; and if the thought of the dying is instensely 
directed upon an absent friend, it may impress itself upon 
the consciousness of that, fiiend, and perhaps cause him to 
see the apparition of the dymg. At last vitality leaves the 
brain, and the higher principles depart, carrying with them 
their proper activity, life and consciousness, leaving 
behind an empty form, a mask, an illusion. There need 
not necessarily be any loss of consciousness in regard to 
the persons and things by which we may be surrounded 


PROCESS OF DYING. 


179 


the only consciousness which necessarily ceases is that 
which refers to his personality, of physical sensation, pain, 
weight, heat and cold, hunger and thirst, which may have 
affected the physical form. As his life departs from the 
brain, another state of consciousness may come into 
existence, because he enters in relation to a different order 
of things. “ The principle, carrying memory, emerges 
from the brain, and every event of the life which is ebbing 
away is reviewed by the mind. Picture after picture 
presents itself with living vividness before his consciousness 
and he lives in a few minutes his whole life again. 
Persons in a state of drowning have experienced that state 
and regained their life. That impression which has been 
the strongest, survives all the rest; the other impressions 
disappear to reappear again in the devachanic state. No 
man dies unconscious, whatever external appearances may 
seem to indicate to the contrary ; even a madman will 
have a moment, at the time of his death, when his intellect 
will be restored. Those who are present at such solemn 
moments should take care not to disturb, by outbursts of 
grief or otherwise, that process by which the soul beholds 
the effects of the past and lays the plan for its future 
existence. ”* 

The process of the parting of the perisprit from the 
physical remains is described by a clairvoyant as follows: 
—“ At first I saw a beautiful light of a pale blue color, in 
which appeared a small egg-shaped substance about three 
feet above the head. It was not stationary, but wavered 
to and fro like a balloon in the air. Gradually it elongated 
to the length of the body, the whole enveloped in a mist or 
smoke. I perceived a face corresponding in features to 
that which was so soon to be soulless, only brighter, more 
smooth, more beautiful, yet unfinished, with the same want 
of expression that we observe in a new-born infant. With 
every breath from the dying body the ethereal form was 
added to and became more perfect. Presently the feet 
became defined, not side by side, as the dying man had 
placed himself, but one hanging below the other, and one 
knee bent, as new-born infants would be in an accidental 
position. The body appeared to be enshrouded in a 
cloudlike mist. A countless host of other presences 


Extracted from the letter of an Adept. 



i8o 


THE PE RISPRIT, 


seemed to be near. When the whole was complete, all 
slowly passed out of sight.” * 

This ethereal body is the soul-body or perisprit of the 
person that died. It is not the spirit itself, but it may 
still be made luminous by the spirit, as it was during life. 
It may still contain the good and evil tendencies which it 
acquired during life. If man’s spirit rises above the 
attractions of his lower self, his lower self would be uncon¬ 
scious and desintegrate ; but if he clings to his animal nature 
with a great intensity of desire, a centre of consciousness 
will become established therein, and its sense of personality 
may continue to exist for a while in his animal soul even 
after the physical body is dead. 

The time during which an astral corpse may remain in 
this state before it is entirely dissolved depends on the 
density and strength of its elements. It may differ from a 
few hours or days to a great many years. Man is made 
up of a great many living elements or principles, of which 
each one exists in its own individual state while they all 
receive their life from the spirit. When the spirit with¬ 
draws they become separate, while each one may retain 
for a while its own particular life and consciousness in the 
same sense as a wheel which is once set into motion will 
continue to run until after the force is exhausted, even if 
the original motive power is withdrawn. 

The astral remnant of a man is, therefore, not the man, 
but a part of his psychic organism, which may or may not 
be conscious that it exists, and which may or may not be 
connected with the spiritual monad whose instrument it 
was during life. 

This Kama loca state is the “ land of the shadows,” the 
Hades of the ancient Greeks, and the “ purgatory ” of the 
Roman Catholic Church. Its inhabitants may or may not 
possess consciousness and intelligence, but the astral souls 
of average honest men and women possess no intelligence 
of their own; they can, however, be made to act intelli¬ 
gently by the power of the Elementals. Paracelsus 
says :—“ Men and women die every day, whose souls 
during their lives have been subject to the influence and 
guidance of Elementals. How much easier will it be for 
such Elementals to influence the sidereal bodies of such 

* A. J. Davis describes a similar scene. 


PURGATORY. 


iSf 


persons and to make them act as they please, after their 
souls have lost the protection which their physical bodies 
afforded ! They may use these soul-bodies to move phy¬ 
sical objects from place to place, to carry such objects 
from distant countries, and to perform other feats of a 
similar kind that may appear miraculous to the unin- 
itiated.” 

The state of consciousness of the animal soul after the 
physical form has become unconscious and lifeless may, 
therefore, differ widely in different persons, according to 
the conditions that have been established during its con¬ 
nection with the body. The soul of an average person in 
Kama loca with only moderate selfish desires is not con¬ 
scious and intelligent enough to know that its physical 
body has died, and that it is itself undergoing the process 
of disintegration ; but the soul of a person whose whole 
consciousness was intensely centred in self may be con¬ 
scious and intelligent enough to remember its past life and 
to feel its impending fate. Seeking to prolong its existence 
it may cling for protection to the organism of some living 
being, and thereby cause an obsession. Not only weak- 
minded human beings but also animals may be subject to 
such an obsession. 

To a body without sensation or consciousness it can 
make no difference under what conditions it may continue 
to exist or perish, because it cannot realize its existence ; 
but to a soul in which the spark of divine intelligence 
has kindled consciousness and sensation, its surrounding 
conditions will be of importance, because it can realize 
them more or less fully according to the degree of its con¬ 
sciousness. Such surroundings, in the state after death, 
each man creates for himself during life by his thoughts, 
his words, and his acts. Man is creating all his life the 
condition wherein he will live in the hereafter. 

Thought is material and solid to those that live on the 
plane of thought. Even on the physical plane every form 
that exists is materialized thought, grown or made into a 
form; the world of the souls is a world in which thought itself 
appears material and solid to those who exist in that world. 
Man is a centre from which continually thought is evolved, 
and crystallizes into forms in that world. His thoughts 
are things that have life and form and tenacity; real 
entities, solid and more enduring than the forms of the 


182 


HELLS. 


physical plane. Good thoughts are light and rise above 
us, but evil thoughts are heavy and sink. The world 
below us to which they sink is the sphere of the grossest, 
most diseased, and sensual thoughts evolved by evil-dis¬ 
posed and ignorant men. It is a world still more material 
and solid to its inhabitants than ours is to us; it is the 
habitation of man-created personal deities, devils, and 
monstrosities invented by the morbid imagination of 
man. 

They are only the products of thought, but, nevertheless, 
they are real and substantial to those who live among them 
and realize their existence. The myths of hell and purga¬ 
tory are based on ill-understood facts. “ Hells ” exist, but 
man is himself their creator. Brutal man creates monsters 
by the working of his diseased imagination during life ; 
disembodied man will be attracted to his creations. There 
are few persons who are not subject to evil thoughts ; such 
thoughts are the reflex of the lurid light from the region of 
evil, but they cannot take form unless we give them form 
by dwelling on them and feeding them with the substance 
taken from our own mind. Love is the life of the good, 
malice the life of the evil. An evil thought, evolved 
unconsciously, is an illusion without life ; an evil thought, 
brought into existence with malice, becomes malicious and 
living. If it is embodied in an act, a new devil will be 
born into the world. The horrors of hell exist only for 
those who have been conscious, voluntary, and malicious 
colaborers in peopling it with the products of their fancy ; 
the beauties of heaven are only realized by him who has 
created a heaven within himself during his life. 

Pain is only caused if a being exists under abnormal 
conditions. Devils do not suffer in hell, because they are 
there in their own natural element ; they would suffer if 
they had to enter in heaven. They belong to the darkness 
and suffer in the presence of light. A man suffers if his 
head is kept under water ; a fish suffers if he is taken out 
of the water. A cruel and vicious person may enjoy sights 
which will horrify others; but if he still has some good 
elements within his organization, they will suffer until they 
have become separated from evil. If there are spiritual 
powers for good, there must be spiritual powers for evil; 
for Evil is merely perverted Good. If man is a temple of 
God, he may likewise be a residence for the Devil. If 


DEVILS. 


*3 


man has a spirit, that spirit can enter into relations with 
either of the two states ; but for a spiritless man, an animal, 
neither God nor the Devil has any use ; nor can the highest 
Dhyan Chahan of evil exert any power over a man unless 
that man has already a devil in him. 

We can only be conscious of the existence of things, if 
a relation exists between ourselves and the things. A 
person who has created nothing during life that could 
have established a relationship with his immortal self will 
have nothing immortal with which to enter into relationship 
with after death. If his whole attention is taken up by his 
physical wants, the sphere of his consciousness during life 
will be confined to those material wants. When he leaves 
his material habitation material wants will no longer exist 
for him, and his consciousness of them ceases. Having 
created nothing in his soul that can enter into relation with 
spirit, his soul will neither lose that which it never possessed 
nor gain that which it never desired, but remain a blank. 
If we hire a priest or a professor to do our thinking for us, 
we create no spiritual aspirations or living thoughts for 
ourselves. If we are contented to believe the opinions of 
others, we have no knowledge of our own. The artificial 
knowledge which has thus been created by the reflection 
of the thought of others on the mirror of the individual 
mind has no power of penetration. Those minds which 
have been fed on illusions will have no substance after the 
illusions have passed away. The only knowledge which 
can remain with the spirit is that which it knows itself. 

Every cause is followed by an effect. Illusions that 
have been created in the mind are forces that must become 
exhausted before they can die. They will continue to act 
in the subjective state and produce other illusions by the 
law of harmony that governs the association of ideas, and 
all illusions will end in the sphere to which they belong. 
Selfish desires will end in the sphere of self, unselfish 
aspirations and thoughts will bring their own rewards if 
they were good, and their own punishment if they were 
evil. Life is a continual death or exchange of conditions 
under which we exist. Our desires for things change as 
the conditions under which we exist assume a different 
character. Before we are born our state of life depends 
on the state of the mother’s womb; but having been born 
into the world, we care nothing more for the placenta and 


184 


EXHAUSTION OF ENERGIES. 


membranes that furnished us with nutriment and life during 
our foetal existence. Being infants, our interests are 
centred upon the breasts of the mother, but these breasts 
are forgotten after we need them no more. Things which 
absorbed the whole of our consciousness during our youth 
are discarded as we grow older. If we throw off the phy¬ 
sical body, the desire for that which was attractive to it 
and important for its existence is thrown off with it, or 
perishes soon afterwards. 

But if the soul again approaches the material plane, and 
through the influences of mediumship again enters into 
relationship with it, the old consciousness and the old 
desires, that had gone to sleep, reawaken, and its physical 
sensations return. If the influence of the medium is with¬ 
drawn, it relapses in its state of stupor or unconsciousness. 

There are innumerable varieties of conditions and pos¬ 
sibilities in the world of spirit and on the astral plane, as 
there are upon the physical plane. If the mind begins to 
investigate these things separately, and without under¬ 
standing the fundamental laws of nature upon which 
such phenomena are based, it may as well despair of ever 
being able to form a correct conception of them. If a 
botanist were to examine separately each one of the thou¬ 
sands of leaves of a large tree, for the purpose of finding 
out the true nature of the latter, he would never arrive at 
an end ; but if he once knows the tree as a whole, the color 
and shape of the individual leaves will be easily known. 
Likewise, if we once arrive at a correct conception of the 
spiritual nature of man, it will be easy to follow the various 
ramifications of the one universal law. 

There is no death for that which is perfect, but the im¬ 
perfect must perish sooner or later. So-called death is 
simply a process of elimination of that which is useless. In 
this sense we all are continually dying every day, and even 
wishing to die, because every reasonable person desires 
to get rid of his imperfections and their consequences and 
the sufferings which they cause. No one is afraid to lose 
that which he does not want, and if he clings to that which 
is useless, it is because he is unconscious and ignorant of 
that which is useful. In such a case he is already partly 
dead to that which is good, and must come to life and learn 
to realize that which is useful, by dying to that which is 
usefulness. This is the so-called mystic death, by which 


I 


THE MYSTIC DEATH. 185 

the enlightened come to life, which involves the uncon¬ 
sciousness of worthless and earthly desires and passions, 
and establishes a consciousness of that which is immortal 
and true. The reason why men and women are sometimes 
afraid to die is because they mistake the low for the high, 
and prefer material illusions to spiritual truths. There is 
no death for the perfect, and he who is imperfect must 
throw away his imperfectness, so that that which is per¬ 
fect in him may become conscious and live. This mystic 
death is recommended by the wise as being the supreme 
remedy against real death. This mystic death is identical 
with a spiritual regeneration.* 

Hermes Trismegistus says : “ Happy is he whose vices 
die before him ; ” and the great teacher Thomas de Kempis 
writes : “ Learn to die now to the world ” (to the attractions 
of matter), “ so that you may begin to live with Christ ” 
A person whose vices have died during his earthly life 
does not need to die again during his life as a soul. His 
sidereal body will dissolve like a silver cloud, being 
unconscious of any desires for that which is low, and his 
spirit will be fully conscious of that which is beautiful, 
harmonious, and true ; but he, whose conscience is centred 
in the passions that have raged in his soul during life, 
can realize nothing higher than that which was the highest 
to him during his life, and cannot gain any other conscious¬ 
ness by the process of death. Physical death is no gain, 
it cannot give us that which we do not already possess. 
Unconsciousness cannot confer consciousness, ignorance 
cannot give knowledge. By the mystic death we arrive at 
life and consciousness, knowledge and happiness, because 
the awaking of the higher elements to life implies the death 
of that which is useless and low. <£ Neither circumcision 
nor uncircumcision availeth, but a new creature.” f 

There are Esprits souf rants, our suffering souls. They 
are the “ revenants ” or “ restants,” the astral bodies of 
victims of premature; death, whose physical forms have 
perished before their spirits became ripe enough to separate 
from the soul. They remain within the attraction of the 
Earth until the time arrives that should have been the 


•John iii. 3. 
fGala. vi. 15. 



186 


SUICIDES. 


termination of their physical lives according to the law of 
their Karma. They are under normal conditions, not 
fully conscious of the conditions in which they exist; but 
they may be temporarily stimulated into life by the influence 
of mediumship. Then will their half-forgotten desires and 
memories return and cause them to suffer. To rouse such 
existences from their stupor into a realization of pain for 
the purpose of gratifying idle curiosity is cruel, and may 
be very injurious to such souls, as it may reawaken their 
thirst for life and for the gratification of earthly desires. 

The soul of the sane suicide, however, or that of a mali¬ 
cious person,may be fully conscious and realize the situation 
in which it is placed. Such existences may wander about 
earth, clinging to material life, and vainly trying to escape 
the dissolution by which they are threatened. Partly 
bereft of reason, and following their animal instincts, they 
may become Incubi and Succubi , Vampires stealing life 
from the living to prolong their own existence, regardless 
of the fate of their victims. The soul-bodies of the dead 
may be either unconsciously or consciously attracted to 
mediums for the purpose of communicating with the living. 
By using the astral emanations of the medium they may 
become materialized, and be rendered visible and tangible, 
and appear like the deceased person himself. But if a 
deceased person was in possession of high aspirations and 
virtues, his soul-corpse will not actually be the actual entity 
which it represents, although it may act in every respect 
as the person whose mask it wears. If we blow into a 
trumpet it will give the sound of a trumpet and no other. 
The soul-corpse of a good person, if infused artificially 
with life, will produce the thoughts it used to produce 
during life; but there will be no more of the identity of 
that person in the corpse than there is the identity of a 
friend in the wire of a telephone, if we recognize his voice 
and manner of expression through such a wire. 

The revelations made by such “ spirits ” are only the 
echoes of their former thoughts, or of thoughts impressed 
upon them by the living, as a mirror reflects the faces of 
those that stand before it. They do not give us a true 
description of the spirit's condition in the world of souls, 
because he is himself ignorant of that condition. At the 
time when Plato was living, such souls returned, giving 
descriptions of Hades and of the deities that were believed 


SPIRIT MANIFEST A TIONS. 187 

to exist in that place. At the present day the souls of 
Roman Catholics will return and ask for masses to be 
relieved from purgatory, while the Protestants refuse to be 
benefited by the ceremonies of the Catholic Church. The 
souls of dead Hindus ask sometimes for the performance 
of sacrifices to their gods, and every “ spirit ” appears to 
be domineered by those ideas in which he believed during 
his life. The discrepancy in their reports prove that their 
tales are usually only the products of the imagination of 
the irrational soul. 

If man has a “ spirit,” that spirit must be immortal. 
Having become conscious in man, it cannot become un¬ 
conscious again, because it is self-existent and independent 
of all conditions but those which it creates itself. The self- 
consciouness of the I Am is indestructible, because it exists 
in the absolute eternal One. The more the lower elements 
cling to that principle in which absolute consciousness 
rests, the more will they partake of its state and be rendered 
conscious and immortal. The object of man’s life is to. 
become conscious that He is —not an illusive personal 
form—but an impersonal, immortal reality. The object of 
his existence is to render the unconscious spirit conscious 
and the mortal soul immortal; the object of death is to 
release that which is conscious from that which is uncon¬ 
scious, and to free the immortal from the bonds of ignorance 
and of matter. 

The tree of life grows and produces a seed, and this seed 
may have to be planted again, to grow into a tree and pro¬ 
duce another seed, and this process may have to be 
repeated over and over again, until at last the spiritual 
consciousness slumbering in the seed awakens to immortal 
life. Again and again may the soul be forced by the law 
of evolution to incarnate into flesh. Unconscious of any 
relation to personalities, it will be attracted to such condi¬ 
tions as may be best suited for its further development, as 
its Karma decides. It will be attracted to overshadow a 
man whose moral and intellectual tendencies and qualities 
correspond to its own, careless whether it enters the 
world as a new-born babe through the door of the hut of 
a beggar, or through the palace of a king. It does not 
care for personal conditions, because it is unconscious of 
its own state. 

Thus a man that reigned as a king in a former incarna- 


i88 


REINCARNA TIOAT. 


tion may be reborn as a beggar, if his character was that 
of a beggar, and a liberal beggar may create as his future 
successor a king or a being of noble birth. Both act with¬ 
out freedom of choice at the time of their visit to the Earth, 
fpllowing unconsciously their Karma. But the Adept 
whose spiritual consciousness is awake, will be his own 
master. He has grown above the sense of personality, and 
thereby gained immortal consciousness during his earthly 
life. He has thrown away his lower self, and death cannot 
rob him of that which he no longer possesses and to which 
he attaches no value. Being conscious of his existence 
and of the conditions under which he exists, he may follow 
his own choice in the selection of a body, if he chooses to 
reincarnate, either for the benefit of humanity or for his own 
progression. Having entirely overcome the attractions of 
Earth, he is truly free. He is dead and unconscious to 
all earthly temptations, but conscious of the highest happi¬ 
ness attainable by man. The delusion of the senses can 
fashion for him no other tabernacle to imprison his soul, 
and before him lies open the road to eternal rest in Nirvana. 

If a person has once attained a certain amount of spiritual 
knowledge, he will—if it is necessary for him to reincarnate 
again—not need to follow the blind law of attraction; but 
he will be able to choose the body and the conditions most 
suitable to him. He may then reincarnate himself in the 
body of a child, or in the body of a grown person, whose 
soul has been separated by disease or accident from the 
body, and the latter may thus be brought to life again, if 
no vital organ is too seriously injured to carry on the 
functions of life again. Cases are known in which a certain 
person apparently died, and finally came to life again, 
when from that time he appeared to be an entirely different 
man; so, for instance, he may have died as a ruffian and 
after his recovery become suddenly like a saint, so that 
such a sudden change appeared inexplicable on any other 
theory than that an entirely different character had taken, 
possession of his body. Such people may, after their 
recovery takes place, speak a language they never learned; 
talk familiarly of things they never saw ; call people by 
their names, of which they never heard; know all about 
places, where their physical bodies never have been, etc., 
etc. If phenomena could prove anything, such occurrences 
might go to prove the theory of the reincarnation of living 
adepts. 


DEGRAD A TION. 


189 

To die—in the real meaning of the term—is to become 
unconscious in relation to certain things. If we become 
unconscious of a lower state, and thereby become con¬ 
scious of a higher existence, such a change cannot properly 
be called death. If we become unconscious of a higher 
condition, and thereby enter a lower one, such a change 
is followed by degradation, and therefore degradation is the 
only possible death, because death in the absolute does not 
exist. Degradation takes place if a human faculty is em¬ 
ployed for a lower purpose than that for which it was by 
nature intended. Degradation of the most vulgar, the low¬ 
est material type takes place, if the organs of the physical 
body are used for villainous purposes, and disease, atrophy 
and death are the common result. A higher and still more 
detrimental and lasting degradation takes place, if the 
intellectual faculties are habitually used for selfish and 
degrading purposes. In such cases the intellect, that 
ought to serve as a basis for spiritual aspirations, becomes 
merged with matter, his spiritual consciousness ceases to 
exist,—in other words, his consciousness is entirely bound 
down to the plane of personality and selfishness, and 
becomes inactive in the region of impersonality and life. 
The lowest and most enduring degradation takes place if 
man, having reached a state in which his personality has, 
to a certain extent, been absorbed by his impersonal /, 
degrades his spiritual self by employing the powers which 
such an amalgamation confers for villainous purposes of a 
low character. Such are the practices of black magic. 
A person who for want of any better understanding em¬ 
ploys his intellectual faculties for his own selfish purposes, 
regardless of the principle of justice, is not necessarily a 
villain, but simply ignorant of his own interests. Such 
persons cannot die spiritually, because they have not yet 
come spiritually to life. The murderer may commit a 
murder to save himself from being discovered of some 
crime, and not for the purpose of robbing another 
person of life. A thief may steal a purse for the 
purpose of enriching himself, and not for the purpose of 
rendering another man poor. Such acts are the result of 
ignorance, and ignorance has no permanent life; persons 
usually act evil for selfish purposes and not for the pure 
love of evil. Such acts are the result of personal feelings, 
and personal feelings cease to exist when the personality 


190 


BROTHERS OF THE SHADOW. 


to which they belong ceases to exist. Such a personal 
existence ceases when his life on the physical plane or in 
Kama loca ceases to act. The higher, immortal and 
impersonal / of the man is neither a gainer nor loser on 
such an occasion, it remains the same as it was before the 
compound of forces representing the late personality was 
born. 

The real villain, however, is he who performs evil for the 
love of evil without personal considerations. A person who 
is no more influenced by his sense of personality, and has 
thereby gained spiritual life and powers, is a magician. 
Those who employ such powers for the purposes of evil 
have been called black magicians or Brothers of the 
Shadow , in the same sense as those who employ their 
spiritual powers for good purposes have been called Bro¬ 
thers of Light. The white magician is a spiritual power 
for good; the real black magician is a living power of evil 
attached to a personality that performs evil instinctively 
and for the love of evil itself. This power of evil may kill 
the man or the animal that never offended it, and by whose 
death it has nothing to gain, destroys for the love of de¬ 
struction, causes suffering without expecting any benefit for 
itself, robs to throw away the spoils, revels in torture and 
death. Such a person calls to life an impersonal evil 
power, which is a part of himself, and which continues to 
exist after his personality ceases to exist on the physical 
plane. Many incarnations may be needed before such a 
power will come into existence and become strong, but 
when it once lives it will perish as slow as it grew. 
“ Angels,” as well as “ devils,” are born into the world, and 
children with villainous propensities and malicious 
characters are not very rare. They may be the product 
of such forces as in former incarnations have developed a 
tendency for evil, without becoming fixed in evil by 
developing any spiritual consciousness in the direction of 
evil. 

Every power which may be employed for a good purpose, 
may also be used for an evil purpose. If we can by magne¬ 
tism decrease the rapidity of the pulse of a fever-patient, we 
may also decrease it to such an extent, that the subject 
ceases to live. If we can force a person by our will to 
perform a good act, we may also force him to commit a 
crime. 


SORCERY. 


i 9 i 

It appears to be unnecessary to enter into details in re¬ 
gard to the practices of Black Magic and Sorcery. It is more 
noble and useful to study how we can benefit mankind, 
than to satisfy our curiosity in regard to the powers for 
evil. To show to what aberrations of mind a craving 
for the power of working black magic may lead, it may be 
mentioned that the would-be black magician, Giles de 
Rays , marechal of France, and better known as “ Blue 
Beard,” who was executed for his crimes at Nantes, killed 
and tortured to death during a few years not less than one 
hundred and sixty women and children for the purpose of 
practising Necromancy and Black Magic. 

The white magician delights in doing good, the servant 
of the black art revels in cruelty and crime. The former 
co-operates with the Divine Spirit of Wisdom, the latter 
co-operates with the animal and semi-intellectual forces of 
nature ; the former will be exalted in God and united with 
Him ; the latter will ultimately be absorbed by the devils 
with which he has associated and which he called to his 
aid. 

To raise our consciousness into the spiritual plane is to 
live ; to let it sink to a lower level is to die. The natural 
order of the universe is that the high should elevate the 
low; but if the high is made to serve the low, the high 
will be degraded. Everywhere in the workshop of nature 
the high acts upon the low by the power of the highest. 
The highest itself cannot be degraded. Truth itself cannot 
be turned into falsehood, it can only be rejected and 
denied. Reason itself cannot be rendered foolish, it can 
only be refused obedience. The universal and impersonal 
cannot itself become limited, it can only come into 
contact with such personalities as are able to approach it. 
The highest does not suffer by breaking its connection 
with the low, the low alone suffers and dies. 

The impersonal and real is everywhere, and manifests 
itself in the consciousness of man. Man’s consciousness 
rotates between the two poles of good and evil, of spirit 
and matter; the attraction from below may be equal to 
the attraction from above. The omnipresent influence of 
the great spiritual Sun renders him strong to overcome the 
attraction of matter, and assists him to come victorious 
out of the struggle with evil. Man is not entirely free as 
long as he is not in possession of perfect knowledge, which 


192 


RELATIVE FREEDOM, 


means, of a perfect consciousness of the truth ; but he is 
free to allow himself to be attracted by a love for the truth 
or to repulse it. His spiritual aspirations may be in co¬ 
operation with nature or act against it. He may become 
united with the principle of truth, or he may sever his 
connection with it and sell his inherited rights to immor¬ 
tality, like the biblical Esau, for a comparatively worthless 
mess of pottage. The Centaur in his nature, whose lower 
principles are animal, while the upper parts are possessed 
of intellect, may carry away his spiritual aspirations and 
lull them into unconsciousness by the music of its illu¬ 
sions. 

Bodies may be comparatively long-lived, and some souls, 
compared with others, may be very enduring; but there 
is nothing permanent but the consciousness of love and 
the consciousness of hate. Love is light, and hate is 
darkness, and in the end love will conquer hate because 
darkness cannot destroy light, and wherever light pene¬ 
trates into darkness, there will love conquer, and hate and 
darkness will disappear. 


CHAPTER IX. 


TRANSFORMATIONS 


“ Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”—Rom. xii. 2. 

The Universe is a manifestation of thought, and thought is 
an action of Mind. The mind whose thought can bring 
an universe into existence must be an Universal Mind, 
embracing in its totality all the individual minds that ever 
existed, and containing the germs of everything that will 
ever come into existence. 

Mind is a motion of will. Without the will acting either 
consciously or instinctively (mechanically) within the mind, 
there would be no production of thought; nor could the 
will produce any orderly thought on the mind if there were 
no Wisdom, and it will therefore be safer to say : The 
Universe is a product of thought, will and wisdom ; nor 
could either of these three ever produce anything, if they 
were seeking to act independently of each other; they 
must necessarily be one, and that one, representing itself in 
three different aspects, as Creative Thought, Universal 
Will and Divine Wisdom, is commonly called God. It 
will therefore be best to say : The Universe is a manifest¬ 
ation of God . 

I am well aware that the use of such an expression 
always gives rise to innumerable misunderstandings in the 
minds of theists, atheists and pantheists ; because each of 
these classes has its own conception of “God;” forgetting 

193 



i 9 4 


GOD. 


that the finite mind cannot conceive of the infinite, and 
that the universal God is beyond the understanding of any¬ 
thing less than its own divine self. 

A man’s life does not reside outside, but within his own 
body, and likewise God does not live outside of His own 
creation ; but His power acts inside of Nature. God is 
everything in Nature, and also in that which is not pro¬ 
duced by nature, and therefore supernatural and eternal, 
such as Justice and Truth. Nevertheless Nature is not 
God ; everything is not divine; but everything is a state 
of being wherein, under certain conditions, the power of 
God can become manifest. Likewise a stone or a tree is 
not nature ; but in each stone and in every tree certain 
qualities of natural laws are revealed. 

If God is all and one, then there can be only one 
original power and one original substance ; and power and 
substance themselves can only be two modes of manifesta¬ 
tion of the eternal One. There can be neither “ matter ” 
nor “motion”/^ se; these two terms signify merely two 
aspects of that which is beyond our conception. If our 
minds were independent of the conceptions of time and 
space, we might perceive how it was that the One ever came 
to manifest itself as a Three and to create a world ; but as we 
are ourselves His creatures, we cannot encompass oui 
Creator, we cannot penetrate with our curiosity into the 
sanctuary of the mystery of mysteries ; we can merely rise 
up in our thought to the throne of the Eternal, and seek to 
feel the power of God within our own heart, and then we 
will know more about Him than if we study the whole 
library of the Vatican, or learn by heart the Encyclopedia 
theologica. 

Jacob Boehme, a man who was capable to open his 
eyes and to see the truth, and who was therefore not 
under the necessity of depending on mere belief in what 
he might have imagined to be true in consequence of draw¬ 
ing logical inferences from external observations, says : 
'* The eternal foundation, the will of God, became desirous 
of conceiving of something, and as there was nothing but 
its own self, this universal consciousness conceived of its 
own self; ‘ it looked within itself,’ or, to express it in other 
words, 1 God beholds Himself in the mirror of His own 
eternal Wisdom/ * 

Human language is not well adapted to the discussion 


UN} TV. 




of eternal truths which are beyond finite comprehension, 
and which can never be understood unless we call to our 
aid that very light of whose existence we desire to obtain 
proof. Therefore, the external reasoner and doubter, he 
who relies solely on his own intellectual reasoning, will 
never arrive at eternal truth, because he rejects the light 
of the spirit, and extinguishes—not the light— but his own 
capacity of understanding. 

If there is only one God in the universe ; there can be 
only one power. This power is called the Willy and it is 
fundamentally the same, whether it manifests itself in the 
spiritual plane, as divine love, wisdom, life, light, justice 
and truth ; on astral plane, as attraction, repulsion, emotion, 
passion, desire ; in the physical plane, as motion, light, heat, 
magnetism, electricity, cohesion, chemical affinity or any¬ 
thing else. All these powers and forces and energies are 
and can be nothing else but manifestations of Will acting 
on the higher planes with and on the lower ones without 
self-consciousness. God never changes, and the Will never 
changes. Nothing ever changes except the mode of the 
manifestation. All these assertions require no other proof 
but one’s own observation. If you doubt them, look within 
yourself, and ask yourself whether or not they are true. 

If there is only one God in the Universe, there can be 
only one Substance. This substance can fundamentally 
likewise be nothing else but the Will, but for the sake of 
distinction we may call it the Mind , because it is by means 
of a mental imagery that the Will creates thoughts within 
itself. We might also call it “ Imagination ” or “ Ideation ’; 
but whatever words we may use, there is each and every one 
of them liable to be misunderstood, because words are 
merely symbols, and to the understanding of any symbol a 
key is necessary. This key is the understanding itself, 
which can be given by no man because it is a self-existent 
principle that is not of man’s making, but will come to him 
by its own grace, if he makes himself ready for its reception. 

This one Substance is fundamentally the same in all 
departments of nature. It constitutes the body of God, 
and therefore of the highest angels. It forms the vehicle 
of Spirit and Light and Thought; it is everything; from 
the Astral Light that pervades the world, down to th& 
most grossly material objects. The highest mountains no 
less than the most minute atoms are corporified Mind; 


196 


FOMMS. 


thought* rendered solid and material by the inactivity of 
their inherent Will. If the will of God were to begin to 
move within the foundations of the earth, the world which 
we now occupy would be dissolved in the twinkling of 
an eye. 

All is one, and the one is in eternal rest. Nevertheless 
we find no absolute rest anywhere ; but wherever we look 
we find a continual change of form and activity, a trans¬ 
formation of the images existing in the infinite mind. If 
the mode of activity of the will is changed within a form, 
the form changes its attributes ; but form itself is nothing. 
It is merely an external appearance. There is consequently 
no change of anything except of the appearance and mode 
of manifestation of that which eternally is. 

Forms are shapes of the Will, tinctured by the Imagina¬ 
tion, or, we may also say, they are shapes of mind, whose 
qualities are determined by the action of the will residing 
in them. They are all certain states of Mind and Will, and 
as such they are enduring or not according to the quality 
and intensity of the vibrations of the divine light that 
causes them to exist as an appearance on the screen of 
creation. They are all manifestations of their own inner 
spiritual light, rendered objective and corporeal. If the 
will and thought constituting a form are divine, the form 
will be perfect; if the will is impure, or the thought inhar¬ 
monious, there will be disharmony in the form which is 
their external expression. 

The perfection and duration of a form depends on the 
quality of the character expressed therein. A thought 
which is a perfect expression of the truth is everlasting and 
beautiful; it will require no circumstantial evidence to prove 
that it is true ; its truth will be self-evident to every one who 
is capable to perceive it. Every one who possesses truth 
himself is an authorized expert in knowing the truth, while 
the sceptic and liar cannot see the truth, however learned 
he may otherwise be. 

A thought once formed exists as an image in the mirror 
of eternity. To remember a thought, is to look for it in 
the Astral Light and to behold it there. The Astral Light 
is the book of nature, where every thought becomes 
engraved and every event recorded. The stars on the sky 
exist and every one may see them. Likewise ideas exist 
like stars on the inner sky of the Universal Mind, shedding 


7 HE SOUL OF THINGS . 


<97 


their rays into the minds of men, and he who is able to 
open his eyes sufficiently can behold them there. No one 
can monopolize an idea, they are accessible to all who can 
grasp them, and they are sometimes grasped simultaneously 
by receptive minds. No one can create a body out of 
nothing, no one can create an idea ; all that men can do is 
to take the already existing materials and to put them into 
new shapes. A man who thus evolves a new and grand 
idea kindles a new star in the heavens, whose light may be 
seen by every one. 

Not only do the thoughts of men impress themselves 
into the Astral Light, but the Universal Mind takes cog¬ 
nizance of everything that exists, and every event that takes 
place on the physical plane is recorded in the memory of 
nature. Every stone, every plant, every animal as well as 
every man, has a sphere in which is recorded every event 
of its existence. Each is like a light of which we can see 
only the grossly material wick ; but neither the flame nor 
its luminous sphere of living light. In the Astral Light of 
each is stored up every event of its past history and of the 
history of its surroundings ; so that every thing—no matter 
how insignificant it may be—can give an account of its 
daily life, from the beginning of its existence as a form up 
to the present, to him who is able to read. A piece of 
lava from Pompeii may give to the Psychometer a true 
description of the volcanic eruption that devastated that 
town and buried it under its ashes, where it remained hid¬ 
den for nearly two thousand years ; a floating timber 
carried by the Gulf Stream to the far North may give to 
the inhabitants of the North a true picture of tropical life ; 
and a piece of bone of a Mastodon may teach the vegetable 
and animal life of antediluvian periods.* 

The pictures impressed in the Astral Light react upon 
the mental spheres of individual minds and may create in 
them emotional disturbances, even if these pictures do not 
come to the full consciousness of their minds. Deeds com¬ 
mitted with a great concentration of thought call living 
pictures in the Astral Light into existence, that may cause 
impressible persons to commit similar acts. 

If the true nature of the constitution of man were pro¬ 
perly understood, capital punishment would soon be aban- 


* Prof. Wm. Denton: “ Soul of Things." 



9 8 


CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 


doned as perfectly useless, unjust and contrary to the law 
of nature. That which commits a murder or any other 
crime is a conscious and invisible power, which cannot be 
killed, and which does not improve in character by being 
separated from its external form. The body is innocent, it 
is merely an instrument in the hands of the invisible culprit, 
the inner man. The face of even a criminal bears an 
expression of peace when the soul has departed. By 
severing the bonds between this intellectual and vicious 
power and the physical form, we do not change its ten¬ 
dency to act evil; but while during the life of the body the 
action of that power was restricted to only one form, having 
been liberated, it may now incite numerous other weak- 
minded people to perform the same crime for which the 
body was executed. Thus by capital punishment evil is 
not abolished, but its sphere of action increased. As far 
as the theory of influencing other would-be criminals with 
fear, by making an example of one, thus to prevent others 
from committing crimes, is concerned; it is well known 
that criminals do not look upon any punishment as being 
something which they have deserved for their deeds, but 
as being a consequence of having been so careless as to 
allow themselves to be caught, and they usually make up 
their minds, that if they were permitted to escape, they 
would be more careful—not to be caught again. 

The destruction of a form is entirely useless for the pur¬ 
pose of annihilating the principle which it represents, be¬ 
cause the form is not the character, nor can the destruction 
of the form in any way improve or ameliorate that character. 
He who steals away the life of any being, whether legally 
or illegally, merely destroys the conditions under which a 
Spark of the Divinity was striving to unfold its light and 
to obtain consciousness, and he thereby commits a crime 
against God ; while the punishment of the culprit exists 
nowhere except in his imagination, because if he is not 
afraid to die, death will be no punishment to- him. All 
that killing can possibly accomplish is to produce a change 
of external effects, creating thereby internal causes which 
are far more injurious even if they are less evident. We 
are against killing for the sake of convenience; but on the 
other hand we would not subscribe to that sentimental 
policy that never wards off a blow and submits to be 
killed. He who permits himself to be killed by another, 
is committing murder through him. From a misunder- 


REFORMS. 


*99 


standing of the relations existing between a principle and 
the form in which it finds its expression result the most 
ludicrous effects; not the least of which are the vagaries 
of those who attempt to improve the condition of the world 
by doctoring the external effects of internal causes, where¬ 
by invariably worse evils come into existence. If we wish 
to prevent the growth of an evil tree, it is of little use to 
lop off the leaves and the twigs, or even to hide the tree 
behind a sereen. The living force in the roots and in the 
trunk will act with renewed strength, producing new 
branches and leaves, which the screen cannot cover from 
sight. 

All forms are nothing but symbols by which internal 
principles find their expression ; to successfully change a 
form it must be endowed with a new principle. We may 
melt iron a thousand times, we cannot transform it into 
gold, nor could we transform a sinner into a saint if we 
were to baptize him with all the water that runs into the 
sea, but we only make a piece of iron magnetic by endow¬ 
ing it with magnetism, and a villain may become honest if 
the light of the true understanding enters his heart. 

Each being in nature represents a mental state in a cer¬ 
tain condition of vibration. Each represents a melody in 
the great symphony of the music of the spheres ; and as one 
sound of an instrument may cause a similar vibration in a 
corresponding instrument, likewise the principle expressed 
in one form may call a similar principle in another form 
into action. 

If mankind as a whole were so far awakened from their 
slumber as to be able to recognize the existence of eternal 
principles, instead of merely beholding the perishing form, 
then would the golden era begin and the paradise be again 
established upon the earth. Then would they cease to 
run after illusions and shadows, or to put their faith into 
worthless objects. Then would they behold the Holy 
Spirit in everything and the Redeemer within themselves. 
Then would the world be transformed by the magic power 
of love, and the darkness of ignorance be changed into the 
light of knowledge by the influence of the rays of divine 
wisdom. 

But what else can an eternal principle be, except a state 
of living will tinctured by divine thought? Even the highest 
spiritual beings and planetary spirits can be nothing else but 
self-conscious thoughts of God, vehicles for the divine will 


SYMPATHIES. 


and instruments for Ls manifestation ; all being obedient 
to divine law, order and harmony, without which they 
could not be divine or eternal. 

God does not need the world to enable him to be what 
He is, but Nature requires God to enable her to exist. 
The principle of life requires no form, but forms need the 
principle of life to enable it to live. Likewise eternal love 
and justice and truth are self-existent, self-sufficient and 
independent of any object or form; but they cannot 
manifest themselves without appropriate forms, and the 
forms that require them to enable them to love, to be just 
and true. In other words : God is independent of His 
creation; but creation is dependent on Him.* 

Thus the sun could exist without our earth, but the earth 
not without the sun; a man can be without truth, but 
eternal truth nevertheless remains what it is, even if there 
were no one to recognize it. 

Thus we see that nothing will ever change or be trans¬ 
formed, except by the influence of another principle. A 
natural product grows by the influence of natural principles, 
and that which is divine in man by the influence of the 
Divine; while that which is devilish in man will grow by 
the aid of the Devil. 

All things are made of will and thought, and therefore 
thought and will can act even upon corporeal substances. 
Anything a person touches receives a part of his own spirit. 

A lock of hair, a piece of clothing, the handwriting of a 
person or any article he may have touched, handled, or 
worn, may indicate to an intuitive individual that person’s 
state of health, his physical, emotional, intellectual, and 
moral attributes and qualifications. The picture of a 
murderer may be impressed on the retina of his victim, 
and in some instances be reproduced by means of photo¬ 
graphy ; but it is surely impressed on all the surroundings 
of the place where the deed occurred, and can there be 
detected by the psychometer, who may thus come e?i rap¬ 
port with the criminal, and even follow the events of his 
life after he has left that locality, and hunt him down just 
as the bloodhound traces the steps of a fugitive slave.*}* 

* See Jacob Boehme, “ Aurora ” 23. 

+ Emma Hardinge Britten : “ Ghost Land.” The case cited in this 
book, in which a clairvoyant followed the tracks of a murderer through 
several towns and caught him at last, is quoted in several German 
publications of the last century. 



PRECIOUS STONES. 


201 


This tendency of the Astral Light to inhere in material 
bodies gives amulets their power and invests keepsakes 
and relics with certain occult properties. A ring, a lock 
of hair, or a letter from a friend, may not only conjure up 
that friend’s cture in a person’s memory, but bring him 
en rapport w_ Ji a peculiar mental state of which that per- 
son was or is a representation. Why do people put so 
much value upon the keepsakes received from a friend 
that they often dawdle away their time in playing with 
them ? Is it that their memory is so weak as to require 
such a stimulus ; or is there something of that friend about 
them which the soul feels and perceives, but which cannot 
be recognized externally ? If you wish to forget a person, 
or free yourself from his magnetic attraction, part from 
everything that reminds you of him. Articles belonging 
to a person may bring us in sympathy with that person, 
although the fact may not come to our consciousness, and 
this circumstance is sometimes used for purposes of black 
magic. 

The existence of a power, by which a disease may be 
transferred upon a healthy person, even in “ non-conta¬ 
gious ” cases, by means of some article belonging to the 
sick person, is generally believed in by the people in 
eastern countries. It must, however, be remembered that 
in making such experiments the success depends on the 
amount of faith which the magician can employ. Without 
faith, nothing can be accomplished, but “ faith ” means 
“ will without any doubt,” such as is attained by experience 

As every form is the representation of a certain mental 
state, every substance has its sympathies and its antipa¬ 
thies ; the loadstone attracts iron, and iron attracts the 
oxygen of the air; hygroscop : bodies attract water; some 
substances change their color, under certain colored rays, 
others remain unaffected, etc. 

The ancients attributed certain virtues to certain pre¬ 
cious stones, and imagined that the Garnet was conducive 
to joy, the Chalcedony to courage, the Topaz promoting 
chastity, the Amethyst assisting reason, and the Sapphire 
intuition. A spiritual force to be effective requires a sen¬ 
sitive object to act upon. But every spiritual or any 
other force can only come to the cognizance of him who is 
receptive for it. If a person cannot feel the occult 
influences of nature, it does not necessarily follow that 


302 


DRUGS . 


they do not exist, and that there may not be others who 
may be able to perceive them because their impressional 
capacities are greater. 

Only the ignorant man believes that he knows every¬ 
thing. What is really known is only like a grain of sand 
on the shore of the ocean in comparison to what is still 
unknown. Physiologists know that certain plants and 
chemicals have certain powers, and to a certain extent 
they explain their secondary effects. They know that 
Digitalis decreases the quickness of the pulse by para¬ 
lyzing the heart; that Belladonna dilates the pupil by para¬ 
lyzing the muscular fibres of the Iris ; that Opium in small 
doses produces sleep by causing anaemia of the brain, 
while large doses produce coma by causing congestion; 
but why these substances have such effects, or why a chem¬ 
ical compound of Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, and Hidro- 
gen may be exceedingly poisonous in one chemical com¬ 
bination, while the same substances if combined in a 
different stcechiometrical proportion may be used as food, 
neither chemistry nor physiology can tell us at present. 
If we, however, look upon all forms as symbols of mental 
states, it will not be more difficult to imagine why strych¬ 
nine is poisonous, than why hate can kill, or fear paralyze 
the heart. 

If all things are made of imagination and will, then 
surely drugs are the same, and by giving drug a to a patient, 
we merely induce a corresponding activity in his will, and 
act upon the imagination of his nature. The fact that the 
patient is not himself conscious of it, does not change the 
matter. There are many processes going on in his system 
of which he has no knowledge. We, therefore, see that 
even the most rabid anti-mind curer and drug-doctor acts 
after all himself upon the mind of the patient. 

The power to receive, transform and evolve thoughts 
is the power of Imagination. If an idea enters into the 
mind, the mind seeks to clothe it into a form, and this 
power may be exercised independently of any active 
application of the will. 

Imagination is, therefore, an active power, and it forms 
the basis of all artistic and magical operations. Art and 
magic are closely related together; both give objective 
form to subjective ideas. The artist exercises this power 
when he mentally projects the picture formed in his mind 


IMAGINATION. 


203 


upon the canvas and chains it there by the use of his pencil 
or brush ; the sculptor shapes the picture of a form on his 
mind and embodies it in the marble. He then employs 
mechanical force to free the ideal from all irregularities, 
and resurrects it from the tomb, out of which it may rise 
as a materialization of thought. The magician forms an 
image on his mind and makes it perceptible to others by 
projecting it into their mental spheres. 

By this law many of the feats performed by Indian 
fakirs may be explained. They may cause tigers and 
elephants or anything else appear before a multitude, by 
merely forming the images of such things in the sphere of 
their mind, and as that sphere extends through space, they 
may locate these images wherever they chose. What the 
spectators see on such occasions is nothing else but the 
thoughts of the conjuror, rendered objective and visible by 
his will. 

In the case of an artist mechanical labor executes the 
work, and the artist will finish his work the sooner the 
more he works to that end. In the case of a magician, 
concentre tion of thought executes his work, and he will 
succeed the better the more his thought is concentrated 
upon the work he desires to perform; but the greatest 
amount of labor will not enable a person who is not an 
artist to produce a real work of art, and the greatest con¬ 
centration of thought will not enable a person whose will 
is not free to perform a true magical feat. 

As long as the world exists no man has ever changed an 
opinion or an idea, except by the influx of another idea; 
nor has any Alchemist ever changed any inferior metal 
into gold except by the influence of that principle which 
constitutes gold; nor has evil ever been transformed into 
good, except through the action of the superior power of 
good. 

The processes of nature are alchemical processes and 
not merely chemical ones; because, without the principle 
of life acting upon the chemical substances of the earth, no 
growth would result. If the force of attraction and repul¬ 
sion were entirely equal, everything would be at a standstill. 
If growth and decay would go hand in hand, nothing 
could grow, because a cell would begin to decay as soon as 
it would begin to form. The chemist may take earth, and 
water, and air, and separate them into their constituent 


204 


SPIRITVS MUNDI. 


elements, and recombine them again, and at the end of his 
work he will be with his work where he began. But the 
Alchemy of nature takes water, and earth, and air, and 
infuses into them the fire of life, forming them into trees 
and producing flowers and fruits. Nature could not give 
her life-imparting influence to her children if she did not 
possess it; the chemist who has no life-principle at his 
command cannot perform the wonders of Alchemy. 

Johannes Tritheim says: “ The Spiritus Mundi resem¬ 
bles a breath, appearing at first like a fog and afterwards 
condensing like water. This ‘ water ’ (A’kasa) was in the 
beginning pervaded by the principle of life, and light was 
awakened in it by the fiat of the eternal spirit. This spirit 
of light, called the soul of the world (the Astral Light), is 
a spiritual substance, which can be made visible and tan¬ 
gible by art; it is a substance, but, being invisible, we call 
it spirit. This ‘ soul ’ or corpus is hidden in the centre of 
everything, and can be extracted by means of the spiritual 
fire in man, which is identical with the universal spiritual 
fire (the Astral Lkht), constituting the essence of nature 
and containing the images and figures of the Universal 
Mind.” 

“ This Light (Astral Light) resides in the Water (A’kasa) 
and is hidden as a Seed in all things. Everything that 
originated from the spirit of light is sustained by it, and 
therefore this spirit is omnipresent; the whole of nature 
would perish and disappear if it were removed from it; it 
is theprincipium of all things.” 

There were true Alchemists during the Middle Ages who 
knew how to extract that Seed from the soul-essence of the 
world, and there are some who have the power to perform 
that process to-day. “ It is an eternal truth, that without 
our secret magical fire nothing can be accomplished in our 
art. The ignorant will not believe in our art because they 
do not possess that fire ; and without that fire all their 
labor is useless. Without that fire spirits cannot be bound, 
much less can they be acted upon with material fire.” * 

The most important alchemical work is the generation 
of man; it requires not only the chemical combination of 
physical substances, but involves a chemistry of the soul 
and an influence of the spirit, and all must harmoniously 

• J. Tritheim i “ Miraculosa,” Chap. xiv. 



CHEMISTRY OF LIFE. 


*>5 

act together, if a human being and not a human monster 
and mental homunculus is to be the result. If the rules of 
Alchemy were better understood and adhered to, scrofula, 
cancers, syphilis, tuberculosis, and other inherited diseases 
would disappear, and a strong and healthy generation of 
men and women would be the result. 

The true alchemical laboratory is the body of man, the 
alembic is the soul, the magic fire the will, having become 
free. Ignorance is like lead, but by the addition of mercury, 
representing knowledge, it becomes transformed into the 
pure gold of wisdom. Nothing will ever be accomplished 
without a mortification of the earthly residua, and it is for 
that purpose necessary to practise a continual sublimation 
of thought by sending the aspirations of the soul up to the 
highest good, and to coagulate the wisdom received, so 
that it may be incorporated into the soul and even the 
body become luminous in the light of the spirit.* 

All this can be accomplished only in proportion as the 
will becomes free and ceases to be the slave of that com¬ 
pound of elementals and animals which constitutes the 
illusive ego of man. Not only should the will be free of all 
lower desires, but free likewise from the dominion of the 
imagination. The will is the sun, the imagination the 
moon. The moon must obey the sun, not the sun to the 
moon. Thought must become obedient to the will and the 


* To answer the question whether or not any one ever succeeded in 
making gold grow in this manner, we will say that there is a German book 
in existence entitled, “ Collection of historical accounts regarding some 
remarkable occurrences in the life of some still living Adepts.” It was 
printed in 1780; and among many most interesting anecdotes about 
successful attempts of making gold grow, there are copies of the legal 
documents and decisions of the court at Leipzig in regard to a case 
where, during the absence of the Count of Erbach, 'm the year 1715, an 
Adept visited the countess in the castle of Tankerstein , and out of grati¬ 
tude for an important service which had been rendered to him by the 
countess, he transformed all the silver she had into gold. When the 
count returned, who, as it seems, kept his own property separate from 
that of his wife, he claimed that gold for himself, appealing to a certain 
statute of the law, according to which treasures discovered upon or be¬ 
low the surface of a certain piece of land belong to the proprietor of 
that territory ; but the court decided that as the material (the silver) out 
of which the gold had been made belonged legally to the countess, con¬ 
sequently this gold could not be classified as a hidden treasure, and did 
not come within the reach of that statute. The count thereupon lost 
his case, and his wife was permitted to keep the gold. 



206 


NATURAL LAW. 


will must be in harmony with wisdom, while wisdom is 
acquired in no other way but by obedience to the law. 

He who obeys the laws of nature and acts as her servant, 
becomes the master of nature and renders her obedient to 
him. He who obeys the divine laws of God and is a true 
servant of God, will be in possession of divine power, and 
God will fulfil his desires. 

The will becomes free tnrough knowledge. Not by 
means of what is usually called “ knowledge,” and which 
consists in opinions formed by intellectual speculation and 
drawing inferences, but by means of the knowledge of the 
soul; such as is the result of the soul’s own perception and 
experience. 

Only when the will has become free, will it be able to act 
at a distance and to perform the wonders of Magic and 
Alchemy, which are regarded as miracles by the ignorant 
and denied by the foolish, because no man can be found 
who is able to perform them; they all being the slaves of 
worldly desires. 

The will of God is free and identical with the law. It is 
not influenced by any selfish desire nor by exhortations and 
prayers. It never deprives any creature, however low it 
may be in the scale of evolution, of any of its rights, or gives 
them to another ; it is deaf to persuasions, unaffected by 
bombast and bragging, and can neither be bribed with 
money nor be deluded with shows. 

If the actions of the Universal Mind were not subject to 
the eternal law of cause and effect, but guided by the 
arbitrary whims and notions of some invisible power or 
god contained therein, the most extraordinary results were 
liable to follow, and the age of actual miracles would begin. 
The earth would perhaps stand still for a day or a year 
and begin to revolve again the next; sometimes it might 
turn fast and at other times slow, and there is no end to 
the absurdities which might take place ; especially if this 
imaginary power could be induced to follow the advices of 
its worshippers. 

To the superficial observer the processes of nature seem 
to be the results of chance. The sun shines and the rain 
falls upon the land of the pious as well as upon that of the 
wicked; storms and fires rage, careless whether they 
destroy the life and property of the learned or that of the 
ignorant, because they are the necessary results of the 


DIVINE WISDOM. 


207 


law of cause and effect. The interest of individuals cannot 
control the welfare of the whole. While the welfare of 
the human body seems to be, to a certain extent, under 
the control of the will of the individual, the processes of 
nature, as a whole, appear to be unguided by the reason 
of the Universal Mind. 

Man’s reason can prevent an outburst of his emotions ; 
but where is the personal god to control the emotions of 
the soul of the world ? God does not prevent the growth of 
warts, or cancers, or tumors, God being the law cannot act in 
contradiction with Himself. His blessings are accompanied 
by curses. Man’s foot crushes the insect, because man’s 
perception and intelligence does not pervade his feet; God 
does not prevent the growth of a stone in the bladder, 
because the high cannot manifest itself in the low, wisdom 
cannot be active in an unconscious form; the means must be 
adapted to the end. The music that can be made with a 
harp cannot be made with a stick. The intelligence of 
the Universal Mind can only manifest itself through 
instruments adapted for intellectual manifestation. 

Wisdom is not a product of the organization of man. 
It is eternal and universal. It finds its expression in the 
fundamental laws upon which the universe with all its forms 
is constructed. It is expressed in the shape of a leaf, in 
the body of an animal, in the organism of man. Its action 
can be found everywhere in nature, as long as the beings 
in nature live according to nature. There are no diseases 
in nature which have not been originally created by 
powers which acted contrary to the laws of nature and 
became therefore unnatural. Outward appearances seem 
to contradict this assertion; because we find animals 
affected with diseases, and epidemic diseases are even of 
frequent occurrence in the vegetable kingdom. But a 
deeper investigation into the occult laws of nature may 
show that all the forms of nature, minerals, vegetables, and 
animals, are merely states or expressions of the states of the 
Universal Mind—in other words—products of the imagin¬ 
ation of Nature ; and as the imagination of Nature is acted 
on, influenced and modified by the imagination of man, a 
morbid imagination of man is followed by a morbid state of 
the Universal Mind, and morbid results follow again on the 
physical plane. This law explains why periods of great 
moral depravity, sensuality, superstition, and materialism 


SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 


20 # 

may be followed by plagues, epidemics, famine, wars, etc., 
and it would be worth the while to collect statistics to 
show that such has invariably been the case. 

The elementary forces of nature are blind and obey the 
law chat controls them. If hailstones were wise, they 
would not indiscriminately destroy the crops ; if the sun 
were a vehicle for intellectual labor, he might perhaps be 
persuaded sometimes to change the directions of his rays. 
Stones have no intelligence, because they have no organi¬ 
zation through which intelligence can act, but if an 
intelligent power sets them into motion, they obey the law 
by which their movement is guided. As the organisms 
rise in the scale of evolution and development, their con¬ 
sciousness becomes more manifest. Consciousness be¬ 
comes manifest as instinct in the animal creation. It 
teaches the bird to fly, the fish to swim, the ants to build 
their houses, the swallows to make their nests. Act¬ 
ing through the nerve centres and the spinal cord it 
induces the actions of the heart and lungs and other 
organic and involuntary actions of the body. 

The brain is the most highly developed instrument for 
the manifestation of mind. It performs the intellectual 
labor of the organism, acting as a centre of attraction for 
the collection of ideas, as a workshop for their transforma¬ 
tion, and as a focus from which they are reflected again 
into the Astral Light. But with the power of performing 
Intellectual labor the highest manifestation of God in man 
»s not yet obtained. If we wish to know the wisdom and 
majesty of God, we must prepare ourselves to become fit 
receptacles for His love. 

To accomplish this, we need not seek to acquire any¬ 
thing by our own power. All selfish efforts are useless for 
that purpose. All we need is to throw away the obstacles 
in our possession that hinder us from seeing the light of 
the truth, and which consist of our own selfish thoughts 
and desires. If man accomplishes this herculean task, 
then will the door to the mystery be open before him ; his 
mind will become illuminated with wisdom, and in his own 
soul he will behold the glory of his Creator. 



CHAPTER X.* 

CREATION. 

“ And God said : Let us make Man.”— Bible. 


The most important question that was ever asked, and is 
still asked with anxiety and often with fear, is the same 
that was propounded thousands of years ago by the Egyp¬ 
tian Sphinx, who killed him that attempted to solve the 
riddle and did not succeed : What is man ? Ages have 
passed away since the question was first asked, nations 
have slain each other in cruel religious warfare, making 
vain efforts to impose upon each other such solution of 
the great problem as they believed they had found, but from 
the tombs of the past only re-echoes the same question— 
What is Man ? And yet the answer seems simple. 
Common sense , if divested of religious or scientific 
prejudices, tells us that man, like every other form in the 
universe, is a collective centre of energy, a solitary ray of 
the universally present Divine Light which is the common 
source of everything that exists ; he is a true child of the 
great Spiritual Sun. As the rays of our sun only become 


* The term Creation is frequently misunderstood. Neither the Bible 
nor any other reasonable book says that anything had ever been created 
out of nothing. Such a superstition belongs entirely to modem material¬ 
istic Science, which believes that life and consciousness could grow 
out of dead and unconscious things. The word * ‘ Creation ” means the 
production of forms ; form in the absolute is not a thing, it is nothing 
but an illusion, and, therefore, if a form is produced, nothing but an 
illusion has been created. 


209 




210 


THE MICROCOSM. 


visibly active in contact with dust, so the divine ray is 
absorbed and reflected by matter. It mingles for a while 
with matter, and draws up towards the sun such elements 
as are sufficiently refined to escape the attraction of 
Earth. 

The sun-ray plays with the waves of the ocean : the heat 
created by the contact of water with light from above 
extracts from below the refined material, and the vapors 
rise to the sky, where, like the ghosts of the seas, they 
wander in clouds of manifold shapes traveling freely through 
the air, playing with the winds, until the time arrives when 
the energies which keep them suspended become exhausted 
and they once more descend to earth. In a similar 
manner the divine ray of the spiritual sun mingles with 
matter while dwelling on Earth, absorbing and assimilating 
whatever he chooses or what corresponds to his needs. 
As the butterfly flits from flower to flower, tasting the 
sweets of each, so the human monad passes from life to 
life, from planet to planet, gathering experience, knowledge, 
and strength, but when the day of life is over, night 
follows, and with it follows sleep bringing dreams of vivid 
reality. The grossest elements remain to mingle again 
with earth, the more refined elements—the astral elements 
—which are still within the attraction of the planet float 
about, driven hither and thither by their inherent 
tendencies, until the energy which holds them together is 
exhausted, and they dissolve again in the plane to which 
they belong; but the highest spiritual energies of man, held 
together by love freed from the attraction of Earth, ascend 
to their source like a white-robed spirit, bringing with it 
the products of its experience beyond the limits of matter. 
Man’s love and aspiration do not belong to Earth. They 
create energies which are active beyond the confines of 
the grave and the funeral-pyre ; their activity may last for 
ages, until it becomes exhausted, and the purified ray, 
endowed with the tendencies impressed upon it by its last 
visit to the planet, again seeks association with matter, 
builds again its prison-house of animated clay, and appears 
an old actor in a new part upon the ever-changing stage 
of life. 

Some of the greatest philosophers have arrived at a 
recognition of this truth by speculation and logical reason¬ 
ing, while others whose minds were illuminated by wisdom, 


EXPERIENCE . 


211 


have perceived it as a self-evident fact by the power of 
intuition. 

To build the new house the impressions gathered by its 
previous visits furnish the material. The slothful rich man 
of the past may become the beggar of the future, and the 
industrious worker in the present life may develop tenden¬ 
cies which will lay the foundation of greatness in the next. 
Suffering in one life may produce patience and fortitude 
that will be useful in another; hardships will produce en¬ 
durance ; self-denial will strengthen the will; tastes engen¬ 
dered in one life may be our guides in another ; and accu¬ 
mulated energies will become active whenever circum¬ 
stances require it during an existence on the material 
plane either in one life or another, according to the eternal 
law of cause and effect. 

A child may burn its fingers by touching the flame, and 
the adult may not remember all the circumstances under 
which the accident occurred; still the fact that fire will 
burn and must not be touched will remain impressed upon 
the mind. In the same manner the experiences gained in 
one life may not be remembered in their details in the 
next, but the impressions which they produce will remain. 
Again and again man passes through the wheel of trans¬ 
formation, changing his lower energies into higher ones, 
until he has attained knowledge by experience, and he 
becomes—what he is destined to be—a god. 

There is a certain stage in the spiritual evolution of man, 
when he will become self-conscious in the spirit. He will 
then remember the events of his previous life; but to 
remember them in his present state of imperfection would 
be merely a hindrance in his progress. It has been said, 
that by not remembering the errors of our past lives and 
their evil consequences, man is liable to commit his pre¬ 
vious errors again ; but we ought not to do good merely 
as a matter of speculation and to avoid evil consequences 
resulting therefrom, but from an inherent desire to do good, 
regardless of what the resulting consequences may be. 

Man, like the majority of organized beings, is an atom 
in the immensity of the universe; he cannot be divided 
and still remain a man ; but unlike other and lower organ¬ 
ized beings, whose realization of existence is confined to 
the physical or astral plane, that which constitutes him a 
Man and distinguishes him from an animal is an integral 


212 


EVOLUTION. 


and conscious part of the highest spiritual energy of the 
universe, which is everywhere present; and his spiritual 
consciousness is, therefore, not limited to a certain locality 
in the physical world. 

Who made Man ?—Man makes himself during every day 
of his life. He is his own creator. The clay—the mate¬ 
rial body—that clings to the ray of the manifested Absolute, 
is taken from Earth; the energies, called the soul , are the 
products of the astral plane ; the highest energies, called 
the spirit , belong to “ heaven.” Animal man, like the 
lower orders of nature, is a product of the blind law of 
necessity, and may even be produced artificially.* As such, 
his mother is Nature, the ever immaculate virgin, who 
presents time-born man to his father, the infinite spiritual 
principle, to be transformed into a god. The physical 
attributes of the child and its mental qualifications are 
the result of inheritance or previously existing conditions. 
Like the tree that can send its roots into the neighboring 
soil and gather the nutriment by which it is surrounded, 
but cannot roam about in search of food at distant places, 
so physical man has only a limited choice in the selection 
of such means of development as he may require; he grows, 
because he cannot resist the law of necessity, and the im¬ 
pulses given by nature. But as reason begins to enlighten 
him, the work of creation begins. The intelligence 
within says to the will: “.Let us make man.” She urges 
the will, and the will sullenly leaves its favorite occupation 
of serving the passions and begins to mould animal man 
in accordance with the divine image held up before him by 
wisdom. 

Let us make Man means : Let us make a divine man 
out of an animal man; let us surround the divine ray 
within us with the purest of essences gathered from the 
lower planes ; let us throw off everything which is sensual 
and grossly material, and which hinders our progress; let 
us transform the emotions into virtues in which the spirit¬ 
ual ray may clothe itself when it reascends to its throne. 

Let us make man ! It depends entirely on our efforts 
what kind of a man we shall make. To make an average 
man or even a superior one in the common acceptation of 
the term is not a very difficult matter. Follow the rules 

* See Paracelsus. “ Homunculi.” 



SELF-MADE MEN. 




of health and the laws of diet, provide above all for your¬ 
self and never give anything away, unless by doing so you 
are sure to get more in return. You will then make a 
respectable animal, a “ self-made ” man, prominent, inde¬ 
pendent and rich—one who lives and dies on the plane 
of selfishness, an object of envy for many ; respected 
perhaps by many, but not by himself. 

But such is the influence of the higher nature in man, 
that even on that plane an apparent unselfishness will often 
bring material reward, and while the inexorable miser is 
despised by all, he who occasionally confers little favors 
makes friends, and may get his favors returned with 
interest. 

There is another class of self-made men; those who 
appear prominently on the intellectual plane. They stand 
before the world as the world’s benefactors, as philoso¬ 
phers, teachers, statesmen, inventors, or artists. They 
have what is called genius , and instead of being mere imi¬ 
tators, they possess originality. They benefit themselves 
by benefiting the world. Intellectual researches that 
benefit no one are unproductive ; they resemble physical 
exercise with dumb-bells, by which muscular strength may 
be gained, but no labor accomplished. An intellectual pur¬ 
suit may be followed for merely selfish purposes; but unless 
there is a love for the object of that study, little progress 
will be made, and instead of a sage, a bookworm will be 
the result. The majority of the learned live in their own 
darkness, seeking only for the fruits that others have 
gathered; but true genius is a magician who creates a 
world for himself and for others, and his light expands as 
he grows in perfection. 

Intellectual labor alone cannot be the true object of life ; 
infinite truth cannot be grasped by the material brain. He 
who attempts to arrive at the truth merely by the intellectual 
labors, without consulting the heart, will find it a difficult 
work. The heart is the seat of Wisdom, the brain the seat 
of the reasoning intellect, and receives its life from the 
heart. The heart and the head should work together in 
harmony, to kill the dragon of ignorance, dwelling upon 
the threshold of the temple. 

In the allegorical books of the Alchemist the Sun repre¬ 
sents Love ; he is the “ heart ” of our solar system; the 
Moon represents the Intellect or the “ brain; ” Earth 


214 


THE TEMPLE . 


represents the physical Body. If the male Sun cohabits 
with the female Moon in the water of Truth , they will pro* 
duce a son whose name is Wisdom. The intellect is the 
material man whose bride is Intuition, the divine woman ; 
no man or woman is perfect as long as the celestial mar¬ 
riage has not taken place through the power of Love.* 

Man is not merely an intellectual workshop ; but a tem¬ 
ple wherein resides the spirit of God. The materials of 
which Man is constructed are the seven principles that 
flow into him from the store-house of universal nature, 
the builder is the will, reason the superintendent, and wis¬ 
dom the supreme architect. The building goes on without 
noise, and no sound of the hammer is heard, because the 
materials are already prepared by nature; they only 
require to be put into their proper places. The highest is 
the Spirit, and Spirit alone is immortal. Such of the lower 
elements as may harmonize with it amalgamate with the 
spirit, and are rendered immortal. Pure spirit can only 
find its corresponding vibrations in the highest spiritual 
elements, such as are furnished by the higher principles, 
and consist of the purest thoughts, aspirations, and mem¬ 
ories produced by the fifth, in which resides the intel¬ 
lectual power of man. Pure intelligence is Spirituality, 
but intellectual power laboring only in the lower planes of 
thought can bring to light no spiritual treasures, unless it 
is penetrated by the light of Wisdom, which enables it to 
distinguish the pure metal from the material dross. A 
very intellectual and learned person may be very unhappy 
and unharmonious, if his tendencies are towards evil, and 
his mind incapable to be illuminated by the light of truth. 
Wisdom is the perfect recognition of the truth ; it resides 
in the spiritual principle of man, and sends its light down 
into his fifth principle, where it may be seen by the power 
of intuition, shining through the clouds of matter like the 
sunlight penetrating a fog. 

The fifth principle receives its stimulus from the fourth, 
the rational nature of man. We cannot build a house 
without solid material, and we may just as well attempt to 
run a steam-engine without fuel or water as to make a 
genius out of a being without any emotions or intellect. 
The stronger the emotions are, the more enduring will 

* “ The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ.” 



THE BUILDERS . 


2 I| 

be the spiritual temple, if they can be made to fit into the 
walls and pillars. A person without any emotions is with¬ 
out virtues, he is without energy, a shadow, neither cold 
nor warm, and necessarily useless. The passionate man is 
nearer to the spirit, if he can guide his passions in the right 
direction towards the source of all good, than the man who 
has nothing to guide and nothing to conquer. 

To produce a perfect building, or a perfect man, the 
proportions must be harmonious. Wisdom guides the work 
and love furnishes the cement. An emotion is either a 
virtue or a vice according to the manner in which it is 
applied. Misapplied virtues become vices, and well- 
directed vices are virtues. A man who acts according to 
the dictates of prudence alone is a coward; one who 
indiscriminately exercises his generosity is a spendthrift; 
courage without caution is rashness j veneration without 
knowledge produces superstition ; charity without judgment 
makes a beggar, and even one-sided justice, if too stern 
and unbending and untempered by mercy, produces a 
miserly, cruel, and despicable tyrant. 

The irrational soul, impelled only by its desires and un¬ 
guided by wisdom, resembles a drunken man who has lost 
his physical balance; it totters from side to side, falls from 
one extreme into another, and cannot guide its steps. 
Only an equilibrium of forces can produce harmony, beauty 
and perfection. The irrational soul, swayed by uncontrol¬ 
lable emotions, forms an unfit habitation for the divine ray, 
that loves peace and tranquillity. 

The control of the emotions is the difficult struggle, that 
is allegorically represented by the twelve labors of Hercules, 
which the oracle of Zeus commanded him to perform. 
Every man who desires to progress is his own Hercules 
and works for the benefit of the king (his Atma), whose 
orders he receives through the divine oracle of his own 
intuition. He is constantly engaged in battle, because the 
lower principles fight for their lives and will neither be 
conquered. They are the products of matter and they cling 
to their source. 

Whence do the emotions come ? 

The cosmologies of the ancients express under various 
allegories the same fundamental truth ; that “ in the begin¬ 
ning ” the Great First Cause evolved out of itself, by the 
power of its own will, certain powers, whose action and 


216 


MYTHOLOGY. 


reaction brought the elementary forces that constituted the 
world into existence. These elementary forces are the 
Devas of the East, the Elohims of the Bible, the Afrites of 
the Persians, the Titans of the Romans, the Eggregores of 
the book of Enoch. They are the active agents of the 
cosmos, beneficial or detrimental according to the condi¬ 
tions under which they act, intelligent or unintelligent 
according to the nature of the instrument through which 
they act. They are not self-conscious rational entities, but 
may manifest themselves through self-conscious organisms 
endowed with reason ; they are not individuals, but may 
become individualized by finding expression in individual 
forms. Love and hate, envy and benevolence, lust and 
greed are not persons, but their shadows may become per¬ 
sonified in human or animal forms. An extremely malicious 
person is the embodiment of malice, and if he sees the 
demon in an objective form, he beholds the reflection of 
his own soul in the mirror of his mind. Ideas exist every¬ 
where, but we cannot perceive a thought unless it first 
enters the sphere of our soul. The spirit that enters our 
soul obtains his life from ourselves, and if we do not expel 
it from our soul he may grow strong by vampirizing our 
life. Like a parasite growing on a tree and feeding on its 
substance, it may fasten its feelers around the tree of our 
life, and grow strong while our own spirit grows weak. A 
thought, once taking root in the soul, will grow, unless it 
is expelled by force, until it will become expressed in an 
act, when obtaining a life of its own by that act, it will 
leave its place to a successor. Those elementary forces 
of nature are everywhere, and always ready to enter the 
soul if its doors are not defended. To call up a wicked 
spirit we need not go in search of him, we need only allow 
him to come. To call up a devil means to give way to an 
evil thought, to vanquish him means to resist successfully 
a temptation to evil. 

The elementary powers of nature are innumerable, and 
their classification gave rise to the pantheons of the Greeks 
and to the mythologies of the East. The greatest power 
is Zeus , the father of the gods, or the source from which all 
other powers take their origin. Minerva, the goddess of 
wisdom, springs from his head, her origin is the noblest of 
all, but Venus, the daughter of the Sun, arising from the 
ocean of the universal Soul, conquers all by her beauty. 


PANTHEON. 


217 


She holds together the worlds in space by the power of her 
attraction, binds souls to souls, chains the good to good, 
and binds the evil to evil. She is the mother of the minor 
gods that combat each other, because love of self, love of 
possession, love of fame, love of power, etc., are all only 
children of the universal power of love. They fight among 
themselves like children, because action gives rise to reac¬ 
tion, love is opposed by hate, hope by fear, faith by doubt, 
etc. To control them the god of Power (Mars) must be 
united with the goddess of Love—in other words, the 
passions must be held in obedience by the Will. 

Each power exists and is held in its elementary matrix 
or vehicle, the A’kasa, the Universal Proteus , the generator 
of form, which finds its outward expression in Matter. 
They are all brought into life by desire for existence. 
This ever-turning wheel of desire is the eternal circle of 
evolution and involution, or the snake , “ whose head shall 
be crushed by the heel of the woman,” meaning Wisdom, 
the eternal virgin, whose “daughters” are faith , hope 
and charity. 

The snake of evil cannot enter the soul, if the latter is 
defended by wisdom. If an evil thought enters the soul 
and we do not immediately reject it, we harbor a devil in 
our heart, whose claims we take into consideration, we 
give him a promise and induce him to remain, and like an 
unwelcome creditor he will continually argue his claims 
until they are fulfilled. 

The lower triads of principles in the constitution of man 
receive their nutriment from the inferior kingdoms of nature. 
If the body is overfed or stimulated by drink, the emotional 
element will become excessively active and the intellect 
will become weak. Too stimulating food or drink is 
injurious for higher development, because life will in such 
cases withdraw its activity from the higher principles and 
be made to work in the lower principles of man. Large 
quantities of otherwise healthy food will be injurious for the 
same reason. The principle of life which transforms the 
lower energies into higher ones is the same principle which 
causes the digestion of food. If it is squandered in the 
lower organs, the higher organs will suffer. Some men are 
habituated to meat-eating, and they require it ; others are 
used to alcohol, and if they would suddenly discontinue its 
use they will suffer; but meat and alcohol are, under nor- 


218 


NUTRIMENT. 


mal conditions, unnecessary for the human system, and 
often they act positively injurious. 

A pure person requires pure food, but to the impure 
impurities become at first a luxury, and afterwards a neces¬ 
sity. “ God said : Behold, I have given you every herb, 
bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and 
every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to 
you it shall be for meat. ,, * 

The principal argument of the lovers of animal food is 
that it “ gives bodily strength, and is necessary for those 
who have to perform manual labor.” This argument is 
based upon an erroneous opinion, because animal food 
does not give as much strength as a vegetable diet; f it 
only stimulates the organism, and induces it to use up the 
strength which it already possesses in a short period 01 
time instead of saving it up for the future. The cons;- 
quences of an exclusive animal diet are gluttony, extreme 
sensuality, combativeness, cruelty ; and stupidity, indo¬ 
lence, physical and psychical apathy, are the necessary con¬ 
sequences of over-stimulation. 

Darwin says that “ the hardest-working people he ever 
met are the persons that work in the mines of Chili, and 
that they are living on an exclusively vegetable diet.” 
The country people in Ireland live almost without meat- 
eating, and yet they are strong and enduring. The common 
Russian eats very little meat and enjoys good health. The 
strongest people that can perhaps be found anywhere are 
the country people in the South of Bavaria, and they eat 
meat only on exceptional occasions and holy-days. 
Horses, bulls, elephants are the strongest animals, and 
live on vegetable food, while the prominent traits of 
character of the flesh-eating animals are cowardice, irrita¬ 
bility and cunning. A bear kept at the Anatomical 
Museum at Giessen showed a quiet, gentle nature as long 
as he was fed on bread, but a few days’ feeding on meat 
made him, not stronger, but vicious and dangerous. 

Each animal form is an expression of that animal’s 
character, and he who takes it up in his system receives a 

* Genesis i. 29. 

t According to the calculations made by Prof. J. v. Liebig, the 
same amount of albuminous substances for which, if in the form of animal 
food, is paid iood., can be bought in the shape of peas for 9d., and in 
that of wheat for 4d. 



ALCOHOL . 


219 


part of that character in his own constitution. If men 
were to live on the meats of tigers and cats, v/olves and 
hyenas and birds of prey, the effect would soon be seen 
in a state of greater demoralization. 

Let those who desire to know the truth in regard to 
meat eating seek the answers to their questions not with 
the intellect of the head, but through the voice of wisdom 
speaking in the interior of their heart, and they will not be 
mistaken.* 

Another question arises in regard to the eating of flesh; 
it is the question whether or not man has a right to kill 
animals for his food. To the professed Christians who 
claim to believe in the Bible there seems to be no cause 
for any doubt, because the command is plain : “ Thou shalt 
not kill.” And yet this command is disregarded daily by 
millions of professed “ Christians,” who base their illusory 
right to kill animals upon a misunderstood verse of their 
Bible. If it is said that God permitted man to “ have 
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of 
the air, and over the cattle, and over every living thing 
that moveth upon the earth,” f we should know that by 
the terms “ fish,” and “ fowl,” and “ cattle,” etc., are 
meant the elementary forces in him, which find their 
objective representations in the animal kingdom, and that 
it is nowhere said that man is permitted to take away a 
life which he is not able to give. Man’s prerogative is to 
appease suffering, not to cause it; not to interrupt the 
work of evolution, but to assist it. Christianity and 
Murder are incompatible terms. 

Meat is stimulating, and stimulating food creates a desire 
for stimulating drink. The best cure for the desire for 
alcoholic drink is to avoid the eating of meat. It is 
doubtful whether there is any passion in the world more 
devilish and more detrimental to the true interests of 
humanity and of individual happiness than the love of 
Alcohol. As meat-eating endows man with illusory 
strength, that soon fades away, leaving its possessor 
weaker than he was before; likewise stimulating drinks 
lull him into an illusory happiness, which soon disappears, 
and is followed by lasting and real misery, causing suffering 
to himself and to others. It causes a long list of diseases 


* See Dr. A. Kingsford-s The Perfect Way in Diet.” 
t Genesis i. 26. 



310 


RELATIVE UTILITY. 


of the internal organs, and leads to premature death ; it is 
the cause of by far the great majority of all crimes 
committed in civilized countries. To those who look 
upon man as a rational being, it seems incomprehensible 
why civilized nations will suffer an evil in their midst that 
fills their jails, hospitals, lunatic asylums, and graveyards, 
and why men will “ put an enemy in their mouths ” that 
destroys their health, their reason, and their life ; but 
those who look deeper see that the dawn of reason has 
only begun, and that the spiritual faculties of the majority 
of men still sleep in the icy embrace of ignorance and 
illusion. Reforms are necessary, but they cannot be 
inaugurated by force. * 

The body politic resembles the individual body. It is 
of no use to destroy the means to gratify a desire as long 
as the desire itself is suffered to exist. The evils that 
affect mankind are the outcome of their desires for such 
evils. Means to gratify evil desires will exist as long as 
they are patronized, and if they are abolished other means 
will be found. Weeds are not destroyed by cutting their 
leaves, if the roots are allowed to remain. 

To eat and drink and sleep for the purpose of living, and 
not to live for the purpose of eating, drinking, and sleeping 
is a maxim which is often heard, but which is not fre¬ 
quently carried out. A great deal of nutriment daily 
taken by men serves no other purpose than to comply 
with habit, and to gratify an artificially created desire. 
The more a man is gross and material, the greater is the 
quantity of food he desires ; and the more food he takes, 
the more gross and material will he become. Noble and 
refined natures require little nutriment ; ethereal beings 
and “Spiritual” entities require no material food. 

The means should always be adapted to the end in view. 
If the end is low and vulgar, low and vulgar means will 
be needed ; if it is noble and high, equally high and noble 
means are required. A prizefighter, whose main object is 
to develop muscle, will require a different training from 
that of one who desires to develop the faculty to perceive 
spiritual truths. Conditions that may be suitable for the 
development of one person may be impraticable for 
another. One man may develop faster through poverty, 

* See Dr. A. Kingsford: (( The Alcoholic Controversy, 



PRACTICAL OCCULTISM. 


221 


another through wealth; one man may need as his initial 
psychic stimulus the gentle and exalting influences of 
married life, while another one’s aspirations may rise 
higher if independent of earthly ties. Each man who 
exercises his Will for the purpose of his higher develop¬ 
ment is, to the extent he exercises it, a practical occultist. 
Every one grows necessarily in one direction or in another ; 
none remain stationary. Those who desire to outstrip 
others in growth must act. 

One of the Tibetan Mahatmas says in a letter : 

“ Man is made up of ideas, and ideas guide his life. 
The world of subjectivity is the only reality to him even 
on this physical plane. To the occultist it grows more 
real as it goes further and further from illusory earthly 
objectivity, and its ultimate reality is Parahrahm. Hence 
an aspirant for occult knowledge should begin to con¬ 
centrate all his desires on the highest ideal, that of 
absolute self-sacrifice, philanthropy, divine kindness, as of 
all the highest virtues obtainable on this Earth, and work 
up to it incessantly. The more strenuous his efforts to 
rise up to that ideal, the oftener is his will-power exercised 
and the stronger it becomes. When it is thus strengthened, 
it sets up a tendency, in the gross shell of Stula-sharira , 
to do such acts as are compatible with the highest ideal 
he has to work up to, and his acts intensify his will-power 
doubly, owing to the operation of the well-known law of 
action and reaction. Hence in occultism great streas is 
laid on practical results. 

Now the question is : What are these practical results, 
and how are they to be produced ? It is a well-known 
fact derived from observation and experience that progress 
is the law of nature. The acceptance of this truth suggests 
the idea that humanity is in its lower stages of develop¬ 
ment, and is progressing towards the state of perfection, 
it will approach the final goal when it develops new 
sensibilities and a clear relation with nature. From this 
it is obvious that a final state of perception will be arrived 
at when the energy that animates man co-operates with 
the One Life operating in the Cosmos in achieving this 
mighty object; and knowledge is the most powerful 
means to that end. 

Thus it will be clear that the ultimate object of nature 
is to make man perfect through the union of the human 


222 


FAITH AND DOUBT. 


spirit with the One Life. Having this final goal before 
our mind, an intellectual brotherhood should be formed by 
uniting all together, and this is the only stepping-stone 
towards the final goal. To produce this practical result, 
union, we must hold up the highest ideal, which forms the 
real man , and induce others to look up to it. To lead 
our neighbors and fellow-creatures to this right path, the 
best means should be pursued with self-sacrificing habits. 
When our energy as a collective whole is thus expended, 
in working up to the highest ideal, it becomes potent, and 
the grandest results are produced on the spiritual plane. 
As this is the most important work in which every occul¬ 
tist should be engaged, an aspirant for higher knowledge 
should spare no efforts to bring about this end. With the 
progressive tide of evolution of the body as a whole, the 
mental and the spiritual faculties of humanity expand. To 
help this tide on, a knowledge of philosophical truths 
should be spread. This is what is expected from an 
aspirant for occult knowledge , and what he should do.” 

The will is developed through action and strengthened 
by faith. The movements of the body, such as walking, 
are only successfully performed by a person because he 
has a full and unwavering faith in his power to perform 
them. Fear and Doubt paralyze the will and produce im- 
potency; but hope and faith produce marvelous results. 
The lawyer or physician who has no faith in his own ability 
will make blunders, and if his clients or patients share his 
doubts, his usefulness will be seriously impaired; whereas 
even the ignorant fanatic or quack may succeed, if he has 
faith in himself. 

Bulwer Lytton says : “ The victims of the ghostly one 
are those that would aspire and can only fear.” Fear and 
Doubt are the hell-born daughters of ignorance that drag 
man down to perdition ; while Faith is the white-robed 
angel that lends him her wings and endows him with 
power. “ Samsayatma Vinasyati ” (the doubter perishes), 
said Krishna to Arjuna, his favorite disciple. 

Even blind faith without knowledge may be more use¬ 
ful than imperfect knowledge without faith, and conse¬ 
quently without action. Strong faith, even if resting upon 
an erroneous conception, may act powerfully in producing 
results ; faith produces an exalted state of the imagination, 
which strengthens the will, banishes pain, cures disease, 
leads to heroism, and transforms hell into heaven. 


DEVELOPMENT OF WILL POWER. 


223 


The only way to develop will-power is to act. Each act 
creates a new impulse, which, added to the already exist¬ 
ing energy, increases its strength. Good acts increase the 
power for good; evil acts, the power for evil; but those 
whose actions are neither good nor evil acquire no power 
for either. A person who acts only from impulse mani¬ 
fests no will, and if he obeys his lower impulses he pas¬ 
sively develops into a criminal or a maniac. The most 
horrible crimes are often committed without any propor¬ 
tionate provocation, because the perpetrators had not the 
power to resist the impulses that prompted them to such 
acts. Such persons are not wicked; they are weak and 
almost irresponsible beings ; they are the servants of the 
impulses that control them, and they can be made the 
helpless instruments and victims of those who know how 
to call forth their emotions : they are like the soldiers of 
two opposing armies, who are not necessarily personal 
enemies ; but are made to hate and kill each other by 
appeals to their passions. The oftener such persons give 
way to impulses, the more is their power of resistance 
diminished, and their own impotency is their ruin. It is 
of little use to be merely passively good, if abstinence from 
wrong-doing may be so called. A person who does neither 
good nor evil accomplishes nothing. A stone, an animal, 
an imbecile, may be considered good, because they do no 
active evil; a person may live a hundred years, and at the 
end of his life he may not have been more useful than a 
stone.* 

There is nothing in nature which has not a threefold 
aspect and a threefold activity. The Will-power forms 
no exception to this rule. In its lowest aspect the Will is 
that power which induces the voluntary and involuntary 
functions of the physical organism j its centre of activity is 
the spinal cord. In its higher aspect it is the power which 
induces psychic activity ; it is diffused through the blood 
which comes from the heart and returns to it, and its 
actions are governed, or can be governed, by intellect 
acting in the brain by means of the impulses, influences, 
and auras radiating from there. In its highest aspect the 
Will is a living and conscious power having its centre in 

* “ He who is neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm, will be spued out 
by nature.”— Bible. 



224 


OBEDIENCE . 


the heart; but this kind of Will is known only to those 
who are illuminated by divine Wisdom. 

The will, to become powerful, must be free, which means 
that it must be obedient to universal law, to become free 
of the bonds of self. If we desire an object, we do not 
necessarily attract that object, but the object attracts us. 
Eliphas Levi says : “ The will accomplishes everything 
which it does not desire; ” and the truth of this paradox 
is seen in everyday life. Those who crave for fame or 
riches or love are frequently disappointed ; the rich miser 
is poorer than the beggar in the street, and happiness is a 
shadow that flies before him who seeks it in material 
pleasures. The surest way to become rich is by being con¬ 
tented with what we have; the safest way to obtain power 
is to sacrifice ourselves for others; and if we desire 
love, we must distribute the love we possess to others, and 
then the love of others will descend upon us like the rain 
descends upon the earth. 

The development of the Will is a process of growth, and 
the only true way to develop the Will is by being obedient 
to the universal Law. Then will we become masters of 
our Will, and our Will will become a serviceable instru¬ 
ment in our hands ; but as long as the Will is governed by 
personal desire, it is not we who control our will, but it is 
our desire. As long as we do the will of the lower 
animal I, we cannot be gods; only when we perform the 
will of the Divinity, within ourselves, we will become free 
of the bondage of the animal elements, and be our own 
masters. 

Man in his youth longs for the material pleasures of 
earth, for the gratification of his physical body. As he 
advances, he throws away the playthings of his childhood 
and reaches out for something higher. He enters perhaps 
into merely intellectual pursuits, and after years of labor he 
may find that he has been wasting his time by running 
after a shadow. Perhaps love steps in and he may think 
himself the most fortunate of mortals, only to find out, 
sooner or later, that ideals can only be found in the ideal 
world. He may become convinced of the emptiness of 
the shadows he has been pursuing, and, like the winged 
butterfly emerging from the chrysalis, he stretches out his 
feelers into the realm of infinite spirit, and is astonished 
to find a radiant sun where he only expected to find dark- 


SPECCULA TING GODS. 


225 


ness and death. Some arrive at this light sooner; others 
arrive later, and many are lured away by some illusive light 
and perish, and, like insects that mistake the flame of a 
candle for the light of the sun, scorch their wings in its 
fire. 

Life is a continual battle between error and truth; 
between man’s spiritual aspirations and the demands of his 
animal instincts. There are two gigantic obstacles in the 
way of progress: his misconception of God and his mis¬ 
conception of Man. As long as man believes in a whim¬ 
sical reasoning God who distributes favors to some and 
punishes others at pleasure, a God that can be reasoned 
with, persuaded and pacified by ignorant man, he will keep 
himself within the narrow confines of his ignorance, and 
his mind cannot sufficiently expand. To think of some 
place of personal enjoyment or heaven, does not assist 
man’s progression. If such a person desists from doing a 
wicked act, or denies himself a material pleasure, he does 
not do so from any innate love of good; but either because 
he expects a reward from God for his “ sacrifice,” or 
because his fear of God makes him a coward. We must 
do good, not on account of any personal consideration, 
but because to do good is best. To be good is to be wise ; 
the fool expects undeserved rewards; the wise expects 
nothing but justice. The wise knows that by benefiting 
the world he benefits himself, and that by injuring others 
he becomes his own executioner. 

What are the powers of Man, by which he may benefit 
the world ? Man as a created being has no powers 
belonging to him. Even the substance of which his 
organization is made up, does not belong but is only lent 
to him by Nature, and he must soon return it to her. He 
cannot make any use of it, except through that universal 
power, which is active within his organization, which is 
called the Will, and which itself is a function of the uni¬ 
versal principle, the Spirit . 

Man is merely a manifestation of this universal principle 
in an individual form, and all the spiritual powers he 
seems to possess belong to the Spirit. Like all other 
forms in nature he receives life, light and energy from the 
universal fountain of Life, and enjoys their possession for 
a short span of time; he has no powers whatever which he 
may properly call his own. 


8 


226 


UNITY. 


Thus the sunshine and rain, the air and earth, does not 
belong to a plant. They are universal elements belonging 
to nature. They come and help to build up a plant, they 
assist in the growth of the rosebush as well as the thistle ; 
their business is to develop the seed, and when their work 
is done, the organism in which they were active returns 
again to its mother, the Earth. There is then nothing 
which properly belongs to the plant but the seed, for it 
alone can continue to exist without the parental organism 
after having attained maturity, and in it is contained the 
character of the species to which it belongs. 

Life, sensation and consciousness are not the property 
of man; he does not produce them. They are functions 
of the universal Spirit and belong to that universal power, 
which has been called God. This Spirit, the One Life> 
furnishes the principles which go to build up the organism 
called AIan, the forms of the good as well as those of the 
wicked. They help to develop the germ of Intelligence 
in man, and when their work is done, those elements 
return again to the universal fountain of Life. The germ 
of Divinity is all there is of the real man, and all that is 
able to continue to exist as an individual, and it is not a 
man, but a Spirit, one and identical with the Universal 
Spirit, and one of His children. How many persons 
exist in whom this divine germ reaches maturity during 
their earthly life ? How many die before it becomes 
mature ? How many do not even know that such a germ 
exists ? Who can answer these questions ? 

To this Universal Principle belong the functions which 
we call Will and Life and Light; its foundation is Love, 
a Fire to which nothing that can perish will ever approach. 
To this Universal Principle belong all the fundamental 
powers which produced the universe and man, and only 
when man has become one and identical with that Spirit 
can he claim to have any powers of his own. 

But the Will of this Universal Spirit is identical with 
the Law , and man who acts against the Law acts against 
the Will of the Spirit, and as the Spirit is man’s only real 
Self, he who acts against that Law destroys himself. 

The first and most important object of man’s existence 
is, therefore, that he should learn the law, so that he may 
obey it and thereby become one with the law and God. 
A man who knows the Law knows himself, and a man 
who knows his divine Self knows God. 


LAW. 


227 

The only power which man may rightfully claim his own 
is his Knowledge; it belongs to him because he has 
acquired it by the help of the powers lent to him by 
nature and the Spirit which is active therein. Not the 
“ knowledge ” of the illusions of life, for suclrknowledge is 
illusive, and will end with those illusions; not mere intel¬ 
lectual learning, for that intellect will be exhausted in 
time; but the spiritual knowledge of the heart, which 
means the power to grasp the truth by feeling and under¬ 
standing, to feel it intuitively, and to see that which we 
feel by the light of the spiritual intelligence of the mind. 

What has been said about the Will is equally applicable 
to the Imagination. If man lets his own thoughts rest, 
and rises up to the sphere of the highest ideal, his mind 
becomes a mirror wherein the thoughts of God will be 
reflected, and in which he may see the past, the present 
and future; but if he begins to speculate within the realm 
of illusions, he will see the truth distorted and behold his 
own hallucinations. 

The knowledge of God and the knowledge of Man are 
ultimately identical, and he who knows himself knows 
God. If we understand the nature of the divine attributes 
within us, we will know the Law. It will then not be diffi¬ 
cult to unite our Will with the supreme Will or the cosmos ; 
and we shall be no longer subject to the influences of the 
astral plane, but be their masters. Then will the Titans 
be conquered by the gods ; the serpent will have its head 
crushed by Divine Wisdom (Sophia); the “ devil ” will be 
conquered, and instead of being ruled by demons, we shall 
become rulers and gods. 

It is sometimes said that it does not make any differ¬ 
ence what a man believes so long as he acts rightly; but 
a person cannot be certain to act rightly, unless he knows 
what is right, and we, therefore, see the most horrible acts 
of injustice committed in the name of justice, errors pro¬ 
claimed as truths, and forms mistaken for principles. The 
belief of the majority is not always the correct belief, and 
the voice of reason is often drowned in the clamor of a 
superstition based upon an erroneous theological doctrine. 
An erroneous belief is detrimental to progress in propor¬ 
tion as it is universal; such belief rests on illusion; 
knowledge is based on truth. The greatest of all religious 


RULES OF LIFE. 


teachers therefore recommended Right Belief as being the 
first step on the Noble Eightfold Path.* 

Perhaps it will be useful to keep in mind the following 
rules: 

j. Do not believe that there is anything higher in the 
universe than the immortal principle of good obtaining 
self-consciousness in man, and that man is exactly what he 
makes himself—not what he pretends to be—and nothing 
else. The true religion is the recognition of truth ; idols 
are playthings for children. 

2. Learn that the All is one and that everything is thy¬ 
self; man is a component and integral part of universal 
humanity, and that what affects one acts and reacts on all. 

3. Realize that man is an embodiment of ideas, and his 
physical body an instrument which enables him to come 
into contact with matter and control it; and that this 
instrument should not be used for unworthy purposes. It 
should neither be worshipped nor neglected. 

4. Let nothing that affects your physical body, its com¬ 
fort, or the circumstances in which you are placed, disturb 
the equilibrium of your mind. Crave for nothing on the 
material plane, live above it without losing control over it. 

5. Never expect any favors from anybody, but be 
always ready to assist others to the extent of your ability, 
and according to the requirements of justice. Never fear 
anything but to offend the moral law and you will not 
suffer. Never hope for any reward and you will not be 
disappointed. Never ask for love, sympathy, or gratitude 
from anybody, but be always ready to bestow them on 
others. Such things come only when they are not desired. 

6. Learn to distinguish and to discriminate between the 

* The eight stages on the noble eightfold Path to find the truth are, 
according to the doctrine of Gautama Buddha, the following : 

1. Right Belief. 

2. Right Thought. 

3. Right Speech. 

4. Right Doctrine. 

5. Right Means of Livelihood. 

6. Right Endeavor. 

7 . Right Memory. 

8. Right Meditation. 

The man who keeps these augas in mind and follows them will be 
free from sorrow, and may become safe from future rebirths with their 
consequent miseries. 



RULES OF LIFE. 


229 


true and the false, and act up to your highest ideal of 
virtue. 

7. Learn to appreciate everything (yourself included) at 
its true value in all the various planes. A person who 
attempts to look down upon one who is his superior is a 
fool, and a person who looks up to one who is inferior is 
mentally blind. It is not sufficient to know of the worth 
of a thing, its worth must be realized, else it resembles a 
treasure hidden in the vaults of a miser. 

Louis Claude de Saint Martin (the Unknown Philo¬ 
sopher) says : 

“ This is what should pass in a man who is restored to 
his divine proportions through the process of regenera¬ 
tion : 

‘‘Not a desire, but in obedience to the law. 

“ Not an idea, which is not a sacred communication 
with Good. 

“Not a word, which is not a sovereign decree. 

“ Not an act, which is not a development and extension 
of the vivifying rule of the word. 

“ Instead of this, our desires are false, because they come 
from ourselves. 

“ Our thoughts are vague and corrupt, because they form 
adulterous alliances. 

“ Our words are without efficacy, because we allow them 
to be blunted every day by the heterogeneous substances to 
which we continually apply them. 

“ Our acts are insignificant and barren, because the” can 
but be the results of our words.” 

Such and similar instructions are nothing new; they have 
been pronounced in various forms by the philosophers of 
all ages, and have been collected in books, and men have 
read them without getting any better for it, because they 
could not intellectually see the necessity for following such 
advice. These doctrines have been taught by the ancient 
Rishis and Munis, by Buddha and Christ, Confucius, Zoro¬ 
aster and Mahomed, Plato, Luther and Shakespeare, and 
every reformer. They have been preached in sermons, 
and are written in poems and prose, in works of philosophy, 
literature, fiction, and art. They have been heard by all, 
understood by some, and practiced by a few. To learn 
them is easy, to realize them is difficult, to adopt them in 
practical life is divine. The highest spiritual truths cannot 


230 


THEORY AND PRACTICE. 


be intellectually grasped, the reasoning powers of half¬ 
animal man cannot hold them until they become accustomed 
to them ; average man can only look up to those ideals which 
are perceptible to his spiritual vision in moments of aspira¬ 
tion, and only gradually can he grow up into that plane 
when, becoming less animal and more intuitive, he will be 
able to realize the fact that moral growth is not necessary 
to please a god whose favor must be obtained, but that 
man himself becomes a god by that growth, and that he 
can stimulate it only by making his energies act on a higher 
plane. The highest energies are latent in the lower ones; 
they are the attributes of the spiritual soul, which in the 
majority of men is still in a state of infancy, but which in 
future generations will be more universally developed, when 
humanity as a whole, having progressed higher, will look 
back upon our present era as the age of ignorance and 
misery, while they themselves will enjoy the fruits of the 
higher evolution of Man. 



CHAPTER XI. 

LIGHT. 

“ Let there be Light.”— Bible. 

Form, personality and sensuality are the death of spirit; 
the dissolution of form, loss of personality and unconscious¬ 
ness of sensuous peiceptions, render spirit free and restore 
it to life. The elementary forces of nature, bound to forms, 
become the prisoners of the forms. Being entombed in 
matter they lose their liberty of action and move only in 
obedience to external impulses ; the more they cling to 
form, the more dense, compact, heavy and dull will they 
become, and the less will be self-acting and free. Sunlight 
and heat are comparatively free; their elements travel 
from planet to planet, until they are absorbed by earthly 
forms. Crystallized into matter they sleep in trees and 
forests and fields of coal, until they are liberated by the slow 
decomposition of form, or forcibly set free by the god of 
fire. The waves of ocean and lake play joyfully with the 
shore. Full of mirth they throw their spray upon the lazy 
rocks. The laughing waters of the wandering brook glide 
restlessly through forest and field, dancing and whirling 
and playing with the flowers that grow by the side of their 
road. They rush without fear over precipices, falling in 
cascades over the mountain sides, uniting, dividing, and 
uniting again, mingling with rivers and resting at last for a 
while in the sea. But when winter arrives and King Frost 
puts his icy hand upon their faces, they crystallize into 

231 



232 


EARTH-BOUND SPIRITS. 


individual forms, they are then robbed of their freedom, and 
like the damsels and knights of the enchanted castle, they 
are doomed to sleep until the warm breath of youthful 
Spring breaks the spell of the sorcerer and kisses them back 
into life. 

The fundamental laws of Nature are the same in all 
her departments, and man forms no exception to the 
general rule. He is a centre around which some of the 
intelligent as well as some of the unintelligent forces have 
crystallized into a form. Bound by the laws of the Karma 
which that centre created, they are doomed to dwell 
in a form, and to partake of the accidents to which 
forms are exposed; imprisoned in a personality, they par¬ 
take of the sufferings which the tendencies of that person¬ 
ality have called into existence. They may be exposed to 
desires whose thirst increases in proportion as they are 
furnished with drink, to passions whose fire burns hotter in 
proportion as their demand for fuel is granted ; they are 
tempted to run after shadows that ever fly, to grasp at hopes 
that ever beckon and vanish as soon as they are approached, 
to sorrows that enter the house although the doors may be 
closed against them, to fears whose forms have no substance, 
to illusions that disappear only with the life of the form. 
Like Prometheus bound to a rock, the impersonal spirit 
is chained to a personality, until the consciousness of his 
herculean power awakes in him, and bursting his chains he 
becomes again free. 

Not all the elements that go to make up a complete man 
are enclosed in his material form. The far greater part of 
them is beyond the limits of his physical body; the latter 
is merely a centre in which those invisible elements meet. 
The elements that exist beyond stand in intimate relation 
with those that are within, although the elements within 
the form may not seem to be conscious of the existence of 
those beyond. Still they act and react upon each other. 

The character of man is far more important than his 
physical form. Thought can create a form, but no form 
can produce a thought; and yet the substance of thought 
is invisible as long as it has not clothed itself in a form. 
Air exists within and beyond the physical body ; it is in¬ 
visible, and yet it is an important element of the body, a 
man who could not breathe would be very incomplete. 
The ocean of mind in which man exists is as necessary to 


r JHE TRUE SELF. 


2 33 


his soul-life as the air is to his body, he cannot breathe if 
deprived of air ; he cannot think if deprived of mind. The 
outer acts upon the inner, the inner upon the outer, the 
above upon the below, and the little upon the great. A 
man who could live independent of his surroundings would 
be self-existent, he would be a god. 

The spirit is not confined by the form, it only over¬ 
shadows the form; the form does not contain the spirit, it 
is only its outward expression ; it is the instrument upon 
which the spirit plays, and which reacts upon its touch, 
while the spirit responds to its vibrations. An ancient 
proverb says : “ Everything that exists upon the Earth has 
its ethereal counterpart above the Earth, and there is 
nothing, however insignificant it may appear in the world, 
which is not depending on something higher; so that, if 
the lower part acts, its preceding higher part reacts upon 
it.” * 

The greatest philosophers in ancient times taught that 
the vofiq that alone recognized noumena, always remained 
outside the physical body of man ; that it overshadowed 
his head, and that only the ignorant believed it existed 
within themselves. Modern philosophers have arrived at 
similar conclusions. Fichte writes : “ The real spirit which 
comes to itself in human consciousness is to be regarded 
as an impersonal pneuma—universal reason—and the good 
of man’s whole development therefore can be no other than 
to substitute the universal for the individual consciousness.” 

The greatest of all teachers, Gautama Buddha, says : 
“ The permanent never mingles with the impermanent, 
although the two are one. Only when all outward appear¬ 
ances are gone, is that one principle of life left, which exists 
independently of all external phenomena. It is the fire 
that burns within the external light when the fuel is 
expended and the flame is extinguished, for that fire is 
neither in the flame nor in the fuel, nor yet inside either of 
the two, but above, beneath, and everywhere ” 

This real and permanent Self is an impersonal principle. 
Hermes Trismegistus says: “ His father is the Sun, his 
mother the stars, and his body the generations of men.” 
It is not attracted into the physical body of man, but the 
soul of man may unite itself with that principle. It is the 


• Sohar Wajecae. 



*34 


THE MASTER . 


real Ego of every person, and the person who succeeds to 
merge his personality into that Ego is thereby rendered 
immortal. It is the true and living Christ of the real 
Christians, not the dead “ Jesus ” but the living Saviour who 
remains with His followers unto the end of the world; and 
every one who unites his own self with that Christ—no 
matter what his creed or confession may be—will become 
as true and veritable a Christ as ever lived upon the Earth. 
It is the loyoq of the ancients, the Adam Kadmon of the 
Hebrews, the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Iswar of the 
Hindus, the way, the light, and the truth, the divine Self of 
every man and the Redeemer for all. 

The whole of a man is not enclosed within the small 
circle that circumscribes his terrestrial life. He who has 
found the Master within himself knows the true insigni¬ 
ficance of his own personal self. The life of the latter is 
made up of a comparatively small number of years passed 
among the illusions of the terrestrial plane ; the life of the 
former is made up of the essence of a great many of such 
lives, he has retained of them only that which is useful and 
grand while the worthless parts have been rejected. He 
who has once realized the presence of his God laughs at 
the idea of having ever imagined himself to be something 
more than a bundle of semi-conscious elements from which 
the Higher Self may draw nutriment if it finds anything 
therein compatible with its own nature. What is all the 
power and glory of earthly kings compared with the divine 
Man, the King in the realm of the soul ? What is all the 
science of this earth but nonsense, if compared with the 
self-knowledge of the regenerated man ? Well may he who 
has welcomed the Lord in his soul be willing to renounce 
money, power and fame, terrestrial loves and all the illu¬ 
sions of life, if it can be called “ renunciation ” to refuse to 
touch things upon which one looks with indifference, if 
not with contempt. How can he who has never seen the 
image of the true Saviour in his heart love Him, and how 
can he who has once beheld it cease to love and adore 
Him with his whole mind and with all the faculties of the 
soul ? Such things are too sacred to be divulged by the 
spirit of God to him who is not worthy to receive God in 
his soul; they will not be understood by those who cannot 
yet rise above limitation; let those who know the things 
of which we have attempted to write rejoice and worship 
in silence. 


THE LORD . 


235 


He who has succeeded in merging the elements consti¬ 
tuting his soul with that divine and ethereal higher self will 
feel its power in his own heart. This principle baptizes 
his soul with fire, and he who receives this baptism of fire 
is ordained a priest and a king. He who is full of its 
influence is the true “ vicegerent of God,” because the 
supreme power of the universe acts through its instrument¬ 
ality. This principle fills his person with a peace “which 
passeth understanding,” attracts the hearts of men to him, 
and sheds blessings upon every one who approaches his 
presence. It forgives the sins of men, by transforming 
them into other men who have not sinned and need not to 
be forgiven ; it does not require to hear confession to give 
advice, because it can read the innermost thoughts of every 
man, and its admonishing voice is heard in the heart that 
has learned to understand its language. The development 
of the power to perceive it confirms men’s faith by enabling 
them to recognize that to be true which they heretofore 
only believed to be so, and being taught by the truth itself, 
they can make no mistake ; it communicates with man— 
not by being absorbed by man, but by absorbing the soul 
of man into itself; it brings the dying to life, because, 
being immortal, he who is united with it partakes of its 
own immortality; the marriages it celebrates can never be 
dissolved, because in this principle all humanity is bound 
together to one indissoluble whole; to separate from it 
would be death to the part that separates itself from the 
whole. The sphere in which this principle still lives is the 
sphere of eternal life ; it is the only true and infallible 
“church,” and its power cannot be taken away. This 
church is truly “ catholic,” that is to say, universal; noth 
ing can live without its jurisdiction, because nothing can 
continue to exist without the authority of life. Still it has 
no particular name, requires no fee for initiation, no cere¬ 
monies or rites. Heathens and infidels may enter it with¬ 
out changing their creed; opinions cease to exist where 
the truth is revealed. 

But this true principle of Christ is not the Christ of 
popular Christianity; it has long ago been driven away 
from the modern Christian temples, and an illusion has 
remained in its place. The money-changers and tradesmen 
have again taken possession of the temple of mind, sacri¬ 
ficing the life-blood of the poor at the altars of wooden 


236 


I HE CHEIST. 


gods, closing their eyes to the truth and worshipping 
tinsel, squandering the wealth of nations for the glorifica¬ 
tion of self. The true “ Son of Man ” is still scoffed at by 
His nominal followers, traduced by His pretended friends, 
crucified by men who do not recognize in Him the only 
source of their life. Killed by men in their own hearts, 
ignorantly and foolishly, because they do not know what 
they are doing, and that their own life-substance departs 
at the time when He departs from their life. 

Modern civilization adores the religion of selfishness, 
and rejects the gospel of love; she debases her own 
dignity by crouching at the feet of idols, where she should 
stand up in her own dignity and purity as the queen of the 
whole creation. Humanity is still dreaming and has not 
yet fully awakened to life. She searches for a god in her 
imagination, and cannot realize that he can only be found 
in the truth. Men and women clamor for the coming of a 
god, and yet this god is ever ready to come to them as 
soon as he is admitted into the heart, by submitting to 
him their will. 

This unknown god is attainable to all. He is ever 
ready to be born in every heart where the conditions for 
his birth are prepared. He always begins to come to life 
in a “ manger ” between the elemental and animal forces in 
man. He can only be born in a lowly place, because 
pride and superstition are his enemies, and in a heart 
filled with vanity he would soon suffocate. The news of 
his birth sends a thrill of pleasure through the physical 
body, and the morning stars sing together for joy, herald¬ 
ing the dawn of the day for the resurrection of the spirit. 
The three magicians from the East, Love , Wisdom and 
Power , appear at the manger and offer their gifts to the 
new-born babe. If Herodes , the king of pride and ambi¬ 
tion, does not succeed in driving it out of the country, it 
begins to grow, and as it grows its divinity becomes mani¬ 
fest. It argues with the intellectual powers in the temple 
of the mind, and silences them by its superior knowledge. 
It penetrates into mysteries, which intellectuality, born of 
sensual perceptions, cannot explain. Grey-headed ma¬ 
terial science, sophistry hoary with age, old logic based 
upon misconceptions of fundamental truths, give way, and 
are forced to acknowledge the wisdom of the half-grown 
god. 

Living in the wilderness of material desires, it is vainly 


THE REDEEMER. 


237 


tempted by the devil of selfishness. It cannot be misled 
by personal considerations, because being impersonal it 
has no personal claims. The “ devil ” can give to it noth¬ 
ing that it does not already possess, because being the high¬ 
est it rules over all that is low. 

This principle is the first emanation of The Absolute. 
It is the “ only-begotten ” son of its father, and it is as old 
as the father, because the manifested Absolute could only 
become a “ father ” at the time when the “ son ” was born.* 
It is the living Word , and every man is a Christ , in whom 
the “ Son of God” becomes manifest. It is the divine self 
of every man, his own original ethereal counterpart without 
any infirmities, because the latter only belong to the form. 
It is not a personality, but it may become individualized 
in man and yet remain in its essence impersonal, a living 
principle, ubiquitous, incorruptible and immortal. This 
is the great mystery before which the intellect, reasoning 
from particulars to universals, stands hopelessly still, but 
which the soul, whose inner spiritual perceptions are alive, 
beholds with astonishment and wonder. The spirit is 
formless and cognizes the formless; the intellect is con¬ 
nected with form, and can only behold the formless in the 
light of the spirit. The intellect deals with the finite, and 
can only grasp the infinite, if illuminated by that very 
principle whose existence is doubted before the illumination 
took place. 

As long as the wavering intellect doubts the existence of 
spirit, it cannot become conscious of its existence, because 
only the steady light of unclouded reason can penetrate 
into the depths where the spirit resides. Mere “ belief” is 
a confession of ignorance ; true faith is based upon convic¬ 
tion. But we cannot be convinced of the existence of 
something we do not know and of which we are uncon¬ 
scious, except by becoming conscious of its existence. 
Consciousness, knowledge and realization of the existence 
of something can only begin at the moment when that 
something begins to become conscious within ourselves. 
We may search for the god within us, but we cannot 
artificially bring him to life. We can prepare the condi¬ 
tions under which he may awake to consciousness within 
ourselves, by divesting the mind from all emotional and 


Bible: St. John i. 1 ; Hebrews i. 3. 



GRACE . 


238 

intellectual predilections and prejudices, and when the 
divine principle has awakened within us, then has arrived 
the moment of “ grace.” Such a grace is not a favor con¬ 
ferred by a partial, whimsical, and personal god, it is the 
effect of a strong desire, which has the power to grant its 
own prayers, and if that desire does not exist, it is useless 
to“pray.”As well may an acorn enclosed in a stone beg 
to be developed into an oak as a man whose heart is filled 
with desires for the low ask to become conscious of the 
high. To put implicit belief in the statement of bonze or 
priest is weakness, to enable ourselves to recognize the 
truth is strength, to arrive at conviction through knowledge 
confers the only true faith. 

Tennyson speaks of the beginning of true faith when he 
says— 

“ We have but faith, we cannot know, 

A beam in darkness, let it grow.” 

We cannot intellectually know ; but when the beam has 
grown, it constitutes spiritual knowledge, which is identical 
with the living faith. 

When the divine and impersonal principle begins to 
become conscious in the personal man, it acts upon him 
from the five points of attraction, represented by the five- 
pointed star, and in Christian symbology by the cross. 
The body begins to feel new sensations, the pulse begins to 
throb with more vigor, the animal forces stirred up in their 
“hells” by the arrival of “ Christ ” become more active, 
pains may be experienced in the head, the palms of the 
hands, and the soles of the feet, and in other parts of his 
body, and the candidate for immortality—whether he be a 
Christian, a Turk, a Brahmin, a Jew, or an Infidel—may 
thus physically experience the process represented in the 
martyrdom of Christ.* The interblending of the immortal 
with the mortal will necessarily cause suffering to the latter 
until the lower elements are entirely subjected and rendered 
unconscious. 

There is no salvation except through suffering ; pains 
accompany man’s entrance into the world, pains accom- 


• The above remark does not refer to stigmata , which are a result of 
a state of exalted imagination, while the pains referred to are the result 
of the penetrating power of the spirit, infusing a new life into the physical 
form. 



THE NEW LIFE. 


*39 


pany his spiritual regeneration. The low must die so that 
the high may live, and as the low is gifted with conscious¬ 
ness and sensation, it suffers acutely during its transfor¬ 
mation. Only he who has tasted the bitterness of evil can 
fully realize the sweetness of good, only he who has suffered 
the heat of the day can fully appreciate the cool of the 
evening breeze. He who has lived for ages in darkness 
will know the true value of light when he enters its realm ; 
he who has been buried in illusions will rejoice when he 
rises up into real knowledge. 

What is true in regard to individual man is equally true 
in regard to humanity as a whole. Christ, the divine prin¬ 
ciple in the kingdom of Spirit, impelled by the infinite love 
that radiates from the centre of the All, eternally descends 
into the hearts of mankind, to partake of their suffering and 
to show them the way to perfection. Compared with the 
a ram ” of the intellect whose power resides in his horns, 
He is the “ lamb ” of wisdom, having no will of His own, 
but doing the will of the Father. He takes upon His 
shoulders the sins of the world, for He Himself is without 
sin. He can gain no personal benefit by His descent into 
matter; being perfect Himself, He needs no further perfec¬ 
tion ; it is the sins of men and women that induce Him to 
shed His love and light and life into humanity. Being one 
with humanity, He suffers with all mankind, He suffers with 
them on account of their sins; and as men and women 
become conscious of His divine presence, they become 
aware not merely of their own individual evils, but of the 
sufferings of humanity as a whole ; they begin to suffer 
with and for each other, they recognize in the Christ prin¬ 
ciple the universal link that binds them all together into 
one harmonious whole by the power of infinite Love. 

Realizing their true nature as sons of the eternal God, 
they die to all that is animal and low, and the more they 
die to the latter the more will they become alive in the 
spirit, wherein exists the only true, real, and immortal life. 
The motto of the ancient Rosicrucian fraternity was : In 
Deo nascimur, in Jesu morimur, reviviscimusper Spiritum 
Sanctum ; that is to say, their souls, like those of all other 
men, were born from the universal fountain of all Good ; 
they died to their semi-animal natures by entering into the 
spiritual body—“the spiritual church”—of Christ, and 
becoming one with the Christ spirit, they gained eternal 


240 


A T-ONEMENT. 


life by being penetrated, illuminated, and glorified by its 
divine light. Their “ church ” had nothing whatever to do 
with any external church organization ; the temple wherein 
their spirits met and held holy communion of thought, was 
the universal temple of the Holy Ghost, representing Love, 
Wisdom and Sanctity, and they symbolized it by a circle, 
representing the sphere of thought, wherein Mercury 
(Intelligence) and Venus (Love) were joined together. 



This conjunction of the principle of Love and Intelligence 
within the soul of man constitutes the true “ Rosicrucian ” 
and Adept. It is not to be obtained by any external cere¬ 
monies and rites ; but by the entire sacrifice of the self-will 
of semi-animal man to the eternal will of God ; whereby the 
lower self is rendered inactive and helpless, as if it were 
nailed upon a cross ; while the divine self of man becomes 
revealed in its own light. 

Of these real Rosicrucians no “ history ” can be written; 
because they have nothing to do with external things ; but 
live in eternity. 

Of late the most grotesque and fabulous stories about the “ Rosicru¬ 
cians ” have been put into circulation, and some enterprising publishers 
have brought out books about their “ceremonies” and ‘‘rites.” All 
such speculations are based upon the mistaken idea that the Rosicrucians 
were a certain sect or organization going by that name, and being bound 
together by some creed or belief, and using external ceremonies and signs. 
There is no doubt that some such “secret societies” existed, calling 
themselves “ Rosicrucians,” and some such are still in existence. They 
have, however, nothing in common with the true Rosicrucian principle; 



SYMBOLISM . 


241 


These ideas are not new, they have not come into 
existence with the advent of Modern Christianity; they 
are eternal truths, as old as the world, and they have been 
represented in various fables and allegories among the 
nations of this globe. In the “ Old Testament” we find 
the doctrine of salvation represented in the story of Noah’s 
ark. Noah represents the spiritual man, and the ark 
the spiritual church. Only those elements of the psychic 
organism of man which enter the spiritual realm are saved, 
while those who remain in a lower state are doomed to 
destruction. Upon the waters of thought floats the ship 
containing many compartments ; the window of knowledge 
is open to enable the divine Man to look out upon the 
watery waste. The intellectual raven is sent out to dis¬ 
cover dry land, but it can find no place to rest, and returns 
to the ark; the dove of spiritual intelligence alone can find 
solid ground in the realm of the spirit ; she returns with 
the emblem of peace, the doubts recede, and the ark is 
turned into a temple resting upon the top of the mountain 
of knowledge. 

Blessed is he whose ark during his terrestrial life is 
guided upon this Ar-ar-at of Faith; it will enable him 
patiently and with indifference to bear the ills of terrestrial 
life until the soul is released from her bonds, and returns to 
her home in the eternal kingdom, having becrme separated 
from all the attractions of matter. 

After this separation, Isis, the goddess of nature, the 
mother of his body, an ever-immaculate virgin, Mary,f will 
take care of her son. The life-principle which was active 

no more than the Christ spirit has anything to do with the organization 
of some so-called “ Christian ” sect. He in whom the Christ lives is a 
real Christian, not he who merely professes a belief in Him with hi« 
mouth. Likewise he who lives in the light that shines from the centre 
of the Cross is a Rosicrucian, and not he who merely belongs to a sect 
by that name. A true Christian can only be known by his acts, and 
likewise there is no need for the true Rosicrucian to use passwords and 
signs for the purpose of making himself known. The only sign by which 
the brothers recognize each other is the light of the Truth. 

t Maja (Illusion). 



242 


CEREMONIES. 


in him during his earthly existence will be laid in a new 
sepulchre, wherein was man never yet laid," it will be 
transferred and embodied in new vegetable or animal 
forms.* Entering again into the wheel of transformation 
and evolution, it may help to produce grain, and assist in 
the growth of the grape ; hidden in bread and wine, it may 
again enter the human form ; but the soul, having partaken 
of the immortal life of the spirit, will have become self- 
existent in God, and suffer no further migrations. He who 
partakes of material food enters into communion with 
the life-principle of nature, while he who assimilates his 
nature with the spiritual principle, becomes one with the 
spirit that constitutes his higher self, communicates with 
the real Christ. 

In the ancient mysteries the ceremony called the trans¬ 
figuration and communion was performed in a similar 
manner as it is now taking place in the Christian churches. 
The initiator presented bread and wine to the candidates 
before the final revelation was made. This ceremony 
represents the descent of the spirit into matter, by which 
the soul is at once nourished with the “ bread of life,” and 
stimulated into a higher kind of spiritual activity by the 
“ wine of divine love,” and its efficacy will be propor¬ 
tionate to the receptivity of the mind of the candidate. 

The great Christian mystic, Jacob Boehme, says : “ What 
we eat or drink affects merely the physical body, but does 
not affect the spirit. That which the ceremony symbolizes 
exteriorly must take place interiorly, else the ceremony 
will be of no use. Those who wish to commune with the 
spirit must rise up to it in their thoughts ; the high will 
not come down to mingle with that which is low.” 

Thus it seems that the original Christian allegory was 
intended to describe an occult process, which must have 
been known long before the establishment of the external 
Christian church. It is based upon an universal law of 
nature, and as such it must have existed as long as 
humanity existed. The Indian Yogi, who, by the practice 
of Yog,f unites his lower self with his higher self; the 
Brahmin, who by meditation and study merges his Atma 
with the universal Parabrahm ; the Buddhist who attempts 

• A. P. Sinnett: “ Esoteric Buddhism,” chap. ii. 

+ " To bind.” 



TRUTH . 


243 


to annihilate his lower self that his formless self may be 
absorbed in Nirvana, all follow the same process \ but the 
ignorant, whether they may call themselves Brahmins, 
Buddhists, Christians, or anything else, and who look upon 
the allegorical representations of natural and “supernatural” 
forces described in pictures, and books, as being the 
images of existing personal deities, are idolators. 

How much more grand and sublime is practical Chris¬ 
tianity than the mere theoretical christianism of our times ! 
Jesus of Nazareth, whether he ever existed or not, re¬ 
presents the ideal man whose example we ought to follow. 
Without being a true follower of the ideal Christ, a belief 
in a person can be of no value. How superior is know¬ 
ledge to mere opinion and belief, how infinitely greater 
the living spirit of Christ to a mere belief in the historical 
person whose memory is worshipped by those who cling to 
external symbols and cannot rise up to a realization of 
spiritual facts ! Why do men close their eyes and grope 
in darkness while they are surrounded by light, why do 
they cling to death when the door of immortal life is open 
before them ? 

Those who cling to external symbols without knowing 
the meaning of the latter, cling to illusion. To convert an 
ignorant person by substituting one form of illusion for 
another is useless, and the money and labor expended for 
such “ conversions ” is wasted. Ignorance exchanged for 
ignorance remains ignorance still; a change of opinion 
cannot establish conviction, and a pretence to knowledge 
does not make a man wise. 

If a man knows the truth, it matters little by what name 
he may call it, or under what form he may attempt to 
express that which cannot be made into form. The 
Buddhist, who looks upon the image of Buddha as a 
figurative representation of a living principle, and who, in 
memory of a once living person in whom that principle 
found its fullest expression, and whose example he wishes 
to follow, offers flowers and fruits at his shrine, is as near 
the truth as the Christian who sees in the picture of Jesus 
of Nazareth the representation of his highest ideal. 

There had been a great deal of time and labor spent to 
prove or disprove that the founder of Christianity was a 
person living in Palestine at the beginning of the Chris¬ 
tian era. To know whether or not such a person by the 


244 


JESUS OF NAZARETH. 


name of Jesus , or perhaps Jehoshua , ever existed, and 
whether he existed at the time indicated by theologians, 
may be a matter of great historical interest, but it cannot 
be of supreme importance for the salvation of Man, 
because persons are only forms, and as such they are limited 
and parts of the whole, and the whole cannot be subor¬ 
dinate to the part. If the Man described as Jesus in the 
New Testament lived, he was undoubtedly an Adept, and 
as such he was a true “ Son of God,” because every one in 
whom the spirit of God awakens to consciousness is a 
Son of God * and an incarnation of the Word. For all we 
know, he may have been the most perfect incarnation of 
the spirit of truth that ever existed, but the truth existed 
before the person was born, and it is not the belief in the 
person that can save mankind from evil, but the recogni¬ 
tion of the truth, of which the outward form can be noth¬ 
ing else but the external expression. Those who believe 
in the still living eternal spirit of Christ, whether they 
believe in His person or not, are the true worshippers, but 
those who do not follow His words, but believe in His 
persoil, worship only a form without life—an illusion. 

The doctrines of the Jesus of the Gospel grow in sub¬ 
limity in proportion as their secret meaning is understood ; 
the tales of the Bible in regard to His deeds and the miracles 
which He performed, and which to the superficial observer 
appear incredible and absurd, represent eternal truths and 
psychological processes which are not merely things of the 
past, but which occur even now within the realm of the 
soul of man, and in proportion as man ceases to be a 
“ Christian,” and comes nearer to Christ, veil after veil 
drops from his eyes, and a new life awakens in him, and a 
new and infinite vista of thought rises up before his 
astonished eyes. 

The theory of the redemption of man does not date from 
the time when the historical Christ is supposed to have 
been born. The history of Christ finds its prototype in 
the history of Krishma. The Greeks taught the redemption 
of the soul under the allegory of Amor and Psyche. Psyche 
(the human soul) enjoys the embraces of her divine lover 
Amor (the sixth principle) every night. She feels his 
divine presence and hears the voice of intuition in her 


Revelations xx. 7. 



OLD TRUTHS WITH NEW NAMES. 


*45 


heart, but she is not permitted to see the source from 
which that voice proceeds. At a time when the God is 
sleeping (when the voice of her intuition is silent) her 
curiosity awakes and she wishes to see the god. She lights 
the lamp of the intellect and proceeds to examine critically 
the source of her happiness ; but at that moment the 
god disappears, because the clouds and illusions created by 
her lower intellectual powers hide the higher spiritual 
truths from view. Despairingly she wanders through the 
lower regions of her emotions and through the sphere of 
sensual perceptions. She cannot find her god by the 
power of reasoning from the material plane. Ready to 
die, she is saved by the power of her love for her redeemer ; 
that attracts her to him. She follows that attraction and 
becomes united with him, no more unconsciously but 
conscious and knowing his attributes, which are now her 
own. 

Modern Christianity has not destroyed the Olympian 
gods. They were allegorical representations of truths, and 
truths cannot be killed. The laws of nature are the 
same to-day as they were at the time of Tiberius; 
Christianism has only changed with symbols and called old 
things by new names, and the dead heathen gods have 
been resurrected in the form of Roman Catholic saints. 

Modern writers have represented the same old truths in 
other forms, in prose and in verse. Goethe—for instance 
—represents it beautifully in his “ Faust.” Dr. Faust, 
the man of great intellect and celebrated for his learning, 
in spite of all his scientific accomplishments, is unable to 
find the truth. 

“ The unknown is the useful thing to know 

That which we know is useless for our purpose.” 

Despairing at the impotency and insufficiency of 
Intellectual research, he enters into a pact with the prin¬ 
ciple of evil. By its assistance he attains wealth, love 
and power, he enjoys all that the senses are capable to 
enjoy, still feeling intuitively that selfish enjoyment cannot 
confer true happiness. Neither the splendor of the 
imperial court, nor the beauty of Helen of Troy, who 
returns from the land of shadows at his request, nor the 
orgies of the Blocksberg , where all human passions are let 


246 


FAUST. 


loose without restraint, can satisfy his craving for more. 
Lord of the Earth, he sees only a single hut which is not 
yet his own, and he takes even that, regardless of the fate 
of its inhabitants. Still he is not satisfied until, aftei 
having recovered a part of land from the ocean by his 
labors, he contemplates the happiness which others may 
enjoy by reaping the benefit of his work. This is the first 
unselfish thought that takes root in his mind. It fills him 
with extreme happiness, and in the contemplation of the 
happiness of others his personality dies and his higher self 
becomes glorified and immortal. 

Truth knows that it is, but it cannot intellectually and 
critically examine itself unless it steps out of itself, and, 
stepping out of itself, it ceases to be one. The eye cannot 
see itself without the aid of a mirror ; good becomes only 
known to us after we have experienced evil; to become 
wise we must first become foolish and eat the forbidden 
fruit. An impersonal power not having been embodied in 
a form, would know that it exists, but would know nothing 
more. To learn the conditions of existence it becomes 
embodied in form and acquires knowledge ; having gained 
that knowledge, form is no longer required. 

The desire for personal existence imprisons the spirit 
of man into a mortal form ; he who during his life on 
Earth conquers all desire for personal existence becomes 
free. The divine Buddha, resting under the Boddhi-tree 
of wisdom, and having his mind fixed on the chain of 
causation, said: “ Ignorance is the source of all evil. 
From ignorance spring the Sankharas (tendencies) of 
threefold nature-productions of body, of speech and thought 
(during the previous life); from the Sankharas springs 
(relative) consciousness, from consciousness spring name 
and form, from this the six regions (the six senses); from 
this springs desire, from desire attachment, from 
attachment existence, birth, old age, death, grief, 
lamentation, suffering, dejection and despair. By the 
destruction of ignorance the Sankharas are destroyed, and 
their consciousness, name and form, the six regions, con¬ 
tact, sensation, desire, attachment, existence, and its 
consequent evils. From ignorance spring all evils, from 
knowledge come cessation of this mass of misery. The 
truly enlightened one stands, dispelling the hosts of illu- 
iions like the sun that illuminates the sky.” 


IMPERSONA LITY. 


247 


The power which diffuses the sense of personality is the 
same which caused the existence of man; it is the power 
of love, and the more the love of a person expands over 
all others the more will the consciousness of personality 
be diffused. We esteem a person according to the degree 
in which he prefers common interests to the interests of 
his own personality. We admire generosity, and unselfish¬ 
ness, and benevolence, and yet such qualities are absurd 
and useless, if we believe that the highest object of man’s 
existence is his own personal happiness on the physical 
plane; because the highest happiness in that plane consists 
in the greatest amount of possessions pertaining to that 
plane. To give is to experience a personal loss. But if 
the man strives for impersonal power, to give away per¬ 
sonal possessions will be his gain, because the less he is 
attracted to personal possessions the more he will expand 
his personality. To give with the view of expecting some 
benefit in return is useless for such a purpose, because 
a person having such an object in view simply gives up 
one personal possession for another. He is a tradesman 
that clings to his goods, and is only willing to part with 
something good provided he can get something better in 
exchange. 

Neither the white nor the black magician has any such 
personal considerations. The inveterate villain does not 
obey his selfish emotions, but controls them and creates 
emotions in others which they cannot resist, and in this 
way he makes others accomplish his purpose. He hates 
whom he chooses to hate, and his will, if directed against 
the person he hates, is freighted with evil. His touch 
may bring disease, and his evil eye may be poison to per¬ 
sons who, having very little will power of their own, are 
unwilling to resist its influence. The emotions which he 
calls forth attract to themselves corresponding elements ; 
he enters into co-operation with the evil forces of the astral 
plane, whom he either commands or propitiates, or he 
makes a compact with them by gratifying their evil desires 
and invoking their aid. Instead of expanding his powers 
he concentrates them into a focus. His will is rather 
forcible than powerful, and is sometimes rendered so by 
certain practices, such as the careless endurance of physical 
pain, and by such ceremonies as may assist his imagination. 
The energies which he accumulates in his astral body 


248 


PR A C TICE OF MA G/C. 


may continue to exist long after the death of his physical 
body, until they are exhausted by suffering and disin¬ 
tegrated in the astral plane. He opposes his individual 
will to the cosmic will, and the result is isolation and 
death. 

The white magician strengthens and expands his will¬ 
power by bringing it into harmony with the universal will. 
Not to counteract, but to assist the process of evolution, is 
his object, and as the progress of the evolution in nature 
is towards unity, the first manifestation of his will is a 
universal love for humanity, and each act by which he 
expresses this love strengthens his will. To unite one’s 
will with the universal will does not mean a merely passive 
contemplation and perception of spiritual truths, but an 
active penetration into the process of evolution, and a real 
co-operation with the beneficent powers, the master- 
builders of the sidereal universe. 

Such a union is not produced by an inactive acqui¬ 
escence with the decrees of an inexorable fate, and patient 
indifference to whatever may happen; much less by a 
submission of one’s will to the dictates of another person 
who claims to be furnished with divine authority, but by 
a strong determination to accomplish whatever is in our 
power for the good of humanity, and by expressing that 
determination through action. 

A man may surrender his will to the will of another 
man, if he believes the latter to be more wise than himself, 
and by doing so he may become strong in mastering his 
own self; but he should never surrender his reason and 
never act contrary to the dictates of his conscience. The 
convent discipline of the Middle Ages may have been 
conducive to strengthen the will-power of those that were 
subjected to it, but it was destructive to reason, and 
instead of gods imbeciles were created. 

According to the unselfishness and the spiritual power 
of a person his individual influence may extend over a 
family, a village, a town, a country, or over the whole 
Earth. Every one desires influence, and seeks to obtain 
power by obtaining wealth and position. But the influence 
gained by such possessions is not individual power. A 
fool may be a pope, a king, or a millionary, and people may 
bow in obedience before him on account of his position 
and wealth. They may despise his person and adore his 


PERSONALITY . 


249 


possessions, which he himself adores, and to which his 
person is as subject as the lowest one of his slaves. Such 
a person is not a commander ; it is his wealth that com¬ 
mands him and the others. His wealth in such a case is 
the reality, and he himself an illusion. When his wealth 
is squandered his own personality disappears, and those 
who used to crouch at his feet may spurn him away from 
their table. The spiritual power of a person is indepen¬ 
dent of such artificial aids ; a virtuous person is esteemed 
in proportion as his qualities become known, and the 
spiritually strong exerts a powerful influence over all his 
surroundings. 

To this class belong all those who have risen above the 
crowd by the power of their own will and intelligence, and 
not in consequence of merely external circumstances, such 
as are conveyed by birth, money or favoritism. It is the 
internal qualities of a man, and not merely his external 
possessions, that are constituting his virtue. 

Opposed to love is hate. Hate is love reversed ; it is 
the opposite pole of the same power that in its manifest¬ 
ation for good is called love, and in its manifestation for 
evil is named hate. Hate, like love, is an impersonal 
power, and the being whose consciousness of personality 
is merged into hate becomes himself an impersonal power 
for evil and as such he may cause evil. His impersonal 
self may be, to a certain extent, as powerful for evil as the 
impersonal self of him who employs his faculties for good, 
but at the end, when the tension between the two poles 
will have reached its natural limits, the law of justice will 
prevail with the good. 

The reason why love must prevail over hate is because 
love being associated with wisdom is stronger than hate. 
Love unites and attracts all; it even converts hate into 
love by the power of truth. Hate disunites and repulses. 
Love is related to wisdom, and hate is based on ignorance. 
Both are enduring and independent of form, but only that 
which is good and wise is immortal. Wisdom is therefore 
the true redeemer of good, and at the same time the de¬ 
stroyer of evil. Love, acting from the centre to the peri¬ 
phery destroys the consciousness of personality and elevates 
the soul over the attraction of the Earth, expanding the 
limits of its activity as it increases in power. Tending 
downwards from the periphery to the centre it produces 


250 


LOVE AND HATE. 


form, personality, selfishness, unconsciousness and death. 
Awakening again in the form it expands and grows again, 
and attracting the most refined and spiritual elements of 
the form within itself it saves them from the tomb of mat¬ 
ter and resurrects them from the form. 

Man may be compared with a planet revolving around 
its own centre ; above the orbit in which he turns is light, 
below it darkness, but his own personality is crystallized 
in the centre. The light above and the darkness below 
attract him, and both are filled with life and strong 
power; only in the centre is the material form, held to¬ 
gether by the cohesion of selfish attractions, rendered 
unconscious and immovable by its density, chilled by its 
remoteness from the spiritual sun. The farther he travels 
from that centre, the more will he approach the light or 
the shadow, and having reached a certain point at which 
the attraction of his personal self ceases, he will either 
rise up to the source of light or sink into the shadow, 
according to his tendencies which lead him to permanent 
good or to permanent evil. A change from darkness to 
light, from evil to good, is only possible as long as man, in 
his revolutions around the centre of his own self, has not 
transcended the orbit where the attraction of self ceases, 
and where the attraction of light and shadows counteract 
each other. Having transcended that orbit, no return is 
possible, he has then committed the unpardonable sin 
which only the impersonal man can commit; because per¬ 
sonal man, being bound to a form, and under the influence 
of love for self, is not free to act as he pleases. As long 
as he clings to self he acts ignorantly and under the pres¬ 
sure of selfish considerations. Mistaking the low for the 
high, he clings to the low and perishes with it. Only he 
who has attained the knowledge of self will be able to 
choose free, because he will know the nature of that which 
he chooses ; the blind have no freedom of choice. Only at 
the end, when all will have attained knowledge and freedom, 
will be the final resurrection of humanity, as a whole, the 
parting of light and shadow, and the restoration of good. 
Then will be the day of Judgment referred to in the Reve¬ 
lation of St. John, when after the ending of the seventh 
round of the life-wave around the planetary chain, the 
“ bottomless pit ” will be opened and the good and evil 
will part. But no personal judge may be there, nor any 
persons that could be judged, but only the power of goo<f 


THE BALANCE. 


251 


and evil, of which former personalities constitute an inte¬ 
gral part, and the power of the law. * 

The unpardonable sin is to knowingly and willfully reject 
spiritual truth. In a certain sense all sins are “unpardon¬ 
able/’ because they all cause effects which have to become 
exhausted before they can cease; but if a person know¬ 
ingly and willfully , without any selfish considerations, 
rejects the truth, it proves that he has a determinate prefer¬ 
ence for evil, that he loves evil better than good, and that 
he is therefore amalgamated with evil. He who is ignorant 
is not responsible for his acts, but he who knows the truth 
and rejects it will suffer its loss. Only the good will sur¬ 
vive, and he who chooses evil will perish in evil. It is 
therefore dangerous for men to acquire occult knowledge, 
before they have become sufficiently -vise «o aelect only 
that which is good. 

Man passes through several resurrections. His life- 
principle resurrects in the plants growing on his grave and 
in the worms feeding upon his body, his astral soul resur¬ 
rects from the body, his true self from the elementary 
forces connected with the activity of his soul. Besides 
these resurrections there are continually resurrections 
taking place within the soul of man ; there is the resurrec¬ 
tion from, selfishness to a true realization of truth, the 
resurrection from ignorance to knowledge, and his libera¬ 
tion from the attraction of evil. Good and evil will finally 
resurrect from the form, the good a blessing and the evil 
a curse ; but the ignorant that know neither good nor evil 
will have no resurrection, because they have no spiritual 
life. They will remain chained to the form and sleep crys¬ 
tallized in space and “live not again until the thousand 
years j* are finished,” J when they may again begin their 
labor of developments at the commencement of a world. 

But He that is will still “sit upon the great white 
throne ” after the earth and the heaven have fled away 
from His face, § and the powers of good, the sons of wis¬ 
dom, “over which the second death has no power,” will 
be with Him §§ as priests and kings, when, after the Pralaya 
is ended, He stretches forth His hands and commands 
again : Let there be Light. 


•St.John: Revelations xx. 1. 

f The Pralaya. $ St. John : Revelations xx. 5. 

§ Revelations xx. 2 , §§ Ibid., xx. 6. 



CHAPTER XII. 


CONCLUSION. 

“ He to whom time is like eternity, and eternity like time, is free.”— 
Jacob Boehme. 

To picture the eternal and incomprehensible in forms, and 
to describe the unimaginable in words, is a task whose 
difficulty has been experienced by all who ever attempted it. 
The formless cannot be described in forms, it can only be 
represented by allegories which can only be understood by 
those whose minds are open to the illumination of truth. 
The misunderstanding of allegorical expressions in the 
sacred books has led to religious wars, to the torturing, 
burning and killing of thousands of innocent victims ; it 
has caused the living wives of dead Hindus to be burned 
with the corpses of their husbands, it has caused ignorant 
men and women to throw themselves before the wheels of 
the car of the Juggernath , it causes the endless quarrels 
between some 200 Christian sects, and while the truth 
unites all humanity into one harmonious whole, the mis¬ 
understanding of it produces innumerable discords and 
diseases. 

The Bible says : “ The secret things belong unto the 
Lord;” and the Bhagwat Gita repeats the same truth in 
the following words: “ Those whose minds are attracted 
to my invisible nature have a great labor to encounter, 
because an invisible path is difficult to be found by cor¬ 
poreal beings.” The greatest poets of the world have 
had occasion to regret the poverty of human language, 
which rendered it impossible to express the language of their, 
hearts in words ; and those whose minds have been fully 
opened to the knowledge of spiritual truths, the wisest of 
all men, such as Buddha, have left no Written records of 
their doctrines ; perhaps their conceptions were too grand 
to be expressed in words, and can be understood only oy 
those who feel as they felt, and whose hearts are open to 
the sunlight of divine illumination. 

252 


THE SUN OF WISDOM. 


*53 


Let us attempt to put the impressions intuitively 
received, regarding the Divine Source of all Being, into 
language, although we well know that language is inadequate 
to describe it, and an attempt to put that which cannot be 
grasped by the intellect into words, will give rise to mis¬ 
conceptions in those who are unable to think with their 
hearts. 

Far, in the unfathomable abyss of space, far beyond the 
reach of the imagination of man, unapproachable even by 
the highest and purest angel or thought, self-existent, 
eternal, resplendent in its own glory is the Shining One , 
whose palpitating Centre is invisible Fire, whose rays are 
Light and Life, pervading the Universe to its utmost 
limits, penetrating every form and causing it to live and 
to grow. Their harmonious vibrations are undulating 
through space, filling all animate and inanimate beings 
with the substance of Love. Meeting primordial matter 
in space, they form it into revolving globes, and chain 
them together by Love, manifesting itself as attraction and 
guiding them on in their restless revolutions. Penetrating 
into the hearts of animals and men, they create sensation 
and relative consciousness, cause the form to feel, to per¬ 
ceive and to know its surroundings, call into life the 
emotions of love and its reaction hate with all their attend¬ 
ing virtues and vices. Penetrating deep into the hearts of 
men, they kindle there the divine fire in whose light man 
may see the image of the Shining One, and know it to be 
himself. 

But it is beyond the power of man to describe in 
language that which cannot be described, to combine 
words, so that the reader may form an intellectual con¬ 
ception of something for which no intellectual conception 
exists; for in the presence of the highest, the unthinkable 
ideal, intellectual labor ceases, and spiritual adoration 
begins. Intellectual labor is a function which man shares 
with the animals ; but the divine prerogative of spiritual 
man and his highest destiny is to live in eternal perception 
and adoration of the highest Good, of which the intellect 
cannot conceive, and for which we can find no name. 

In this eternal universal principle is the source of all 
Power. In it alone is magic power contained, even to the 
extent of creating new worlds and to call a new universe 
of forms into existence. It is the only Philosopher's Stone 


254 


INTELLECTUAL ANIMALS. 


and the only Elixir of Life or Universal Panacea, and 
can be had everywhere and at any time without expense, 
6 y every one who knows how to seek for it. It can attain 
self-consciousness and self-knowledge only in the organism 
of man, because the lower animals are not yet far enough 
advanced to be used as its vehicles and in trument; but 
the man in whom it has awakened to life shares its attri¬ 
butes and obtains magic power; for he is a iving temple 
of God. The man in whom God has not awaken d is, as 
long as he remains in that condition, merely an intellectual 
animal, and having no Spirit active within flic heart, he 
can possess no spiritual or magical powers. Some modern 
“ Philosophers,” who say that ?nan has no magical powers, 
are right from their own point of view ; for thv ts mai ” 
known to external scienc L merely an intellectual animal, 
having no spiritual and therefore no magical power; the 
real man only begins :o exist when he is reborn in the 
Spirit. True philosophers have recognized this fact. 
Schopenhauer says : “ In consequence of the action of 
‘grace,’ the entire being f man becomes remodelled, so 
that he desires no longer anything of that for which he was 
craving heretofore, and becomes so to say a new man.”* 

Everything in nature has a threefold nature, and like¬ 
wise the allegories of the sacred books of the Eas as well 
as those of the West have a hreeiold meaning—an exoteric, 
an esoteric, and a secret signification. The vulgar- ihe 
learned as well as the un earned—can see only the 
exoteric side, which, in the majority of cases, is so absurd, 
that its very absurdity should serve as a warning to people 
endowed with common sense not to accept these fabies in 
their literal meaning; there is, however, nothing too 
absurd to attract the attention of the ignorant, and we see 
them, therefore, split into three classes, namely—first, into 
those who implicitly believe their literal meaning ; 
secondly, into those who reject them on account of their 
supposed absurdity, never suspecting a deeper meaning ; 
and, thirdly, into those who are irritated at their absurdity, 
and valiantly fight the man of straw which they have them¬ 
selves set up in their minds. 

Those who are willing to learn can be instructed, but 
they that believe that they already know, refuse to be 


* “ Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.” I., 625. 



THE PATH. 


ass 

taught. For this reason the legitimate guardians of the 
truth, the teachers of science and religion, like those who 
have no intellectual power, are often the last ones to re¬ 
cognize the truth. Those who are not able to think cannot 
be taught, and those who live entirely within the region of 
intellectual speculation reject the light of their own intui¬ 
tion. The esoteric meaning of symbols may be understood 
by those whose intellect is open to intuition, and may be 
explained to all who do not reject the truth ; but the secret 
meaning of the sacred symbols cannot be explained in 
words, it can be understood only by those who have 
entered the practical way. 

How can we enter the path ?—Only in practical experi¬ 
ence is life. Petrified speculative science, mouldy spec¬ 
ulative philosophy, and dried-up speculative theology 
groan in the embrace of death. Humanity awakes from 
her slumber and asks them for the bread of wisdom, but 
receives only a stone. She turns to science, but science is 
silent, wraps herself up in her vanity and turns away ; she 
turns to philosophy, and old philosophy answers, but her 
talk is an incomprehensible jargon, and confuses matters 
still more. She turns to theology, but theology threatens 
the obnoxious questioner with hell, and bids her to remain 
ignorant. But the people, on the whole, are no longer 
satisfied with such answers; they are no longer contented 
with the assertion that the truth is known to a few, and 
that they themselves must remain ignorant, they want to 
enjoy it too. 

If we wish to enter the path to infinite life, the first 
requirement is 

TO KNOW. 

Knowledge is the perception and understanding of truth. 
We can only know that which we perceive. All know¬ 
ledge arrived at by logic, however exact, is only negative 
knowledge, but not positive ; for truth is spiritual and can 
be recognized only by spirit. By intellectual reasoning 
and mathematics we can find out what a thing is not; but 
never what it actually is. We say that one and two added 
together make three ; meaning that they can make nothing 
else but three; but what the three actually is, still remains 
a mystery. We say that if we chemically combine Sulphur 


KNOWLEDGE. 


256 

and Carbon, the result can be nothing else but a com¬ 
pound of Sulphur and Carbon ; but for all that we do not 
Know what that combination is, as long as we have not 
perceived its attributes. There are two principal modes 
of perception, namely, seeing and feeling. Each of these 
modes, if unaccompanied by the other, is unreliable ; only 
if we simultaneously see and feel a thing do we know that 
it exist. 

Thousands of years have passed away since mankind 
first saw the sun and stars, and modern telescopes have 
brought them nearer to us. Nevertheless our knowledge 
of these cosmic bodies, and the conditions of life existing 
upon them, consists merely of speculation and opinions, 
which may be overthrown at any time, when our means 
for observation are supplanted by better ones. We give 
names to the substances discovered by the spectroscope, 
but we will not know the true nature of the stars as long 
as we are not able to partake of their consciousness and 
feel the qualities of the life and characters embodied in 
their forms. 

For thousands of years mankind has intuitively felt the 
presence of the Unknown. Those who felt the presence 
of the universal Spirit, know that it exists. Generations 
after generations have disappeared from earth after spend¬ 
ing their lives in vain efforts to know not God whose 
power they felt but whom they could not see with their 
eyes, and even our greatest theologians seem to be very 
far from a true knowledge of God. Only when the mind 
of the regenerated man has become illuminated by divine 
wisdom will he be able to know the true God, for he will 
see His image within his own soul. 

If we are able to see and feel the external attributes of 
a thing, we may begin to understand what these qualities 
are,but we will, for all that, still be ignorant of its interior 
qualities and its true character. To know the latter it will 
be necessary to enter into its spirit, and this can only be 
done by the spirit of man, not by his external senses. The 
spiritual principle in man, if once awakened to self-con¬ 
sciousness, has attributes and functions far superior to 
those of the external man ; it has the power to perceive, 
to see and to feel the internal qualities of things which are 
imperceptible to the external senses ; it can identify itself 
with the object of its observation and partake of its con- 


SELF-KNOIVLEDGE . 


257 


sciousness, it becomes for the time being as one with that 
object and shares its feelings, it sees that object objection- 
ally and partakes of its subjective sensations. 

Thus does a lover partake of the joys and sorrows of' 
the object he loves, and feel as if he were one with it in 
spirit although separated from it in the form ; for love is 
the power by which such a divine state is attained, it 
penetrates all things, and coming from the centre of all 
it goes to the centre. 

What is it that prevents us to love and to know all 
things but our own prejudices and predilections ? We do 
not see things as they are but as we imagine them to be. 
He who desires to know all things should not look upon 
them with his own eyes, but with the eyes of God; he 
should not think the thoughts suggested by external 
appearances, but he should let the Divine Spirit do its 
thinking within his mind. 

To obtain true knowledge we must render ourselves 
able to receive it; we must free our minds from all the 
intellectual rubbish that has accumulated there through 
the perverted methods of education of modern civilization. 
The more false doctrines we have learned the more diffi¬ 
cult will be the labor to make room for the truth, and it 
may take years to unlearn that which we have learned at 
the expense of a great deal of labor, money, and time. 
The Bible says that “we must become like little children 
before we can enter the kingdom of truth.” The princi¬ 
pal thing to know is to know ourselves; if we know our¬ 
selves, we will know that we are to be the kings of the 
universe. The essential Man is a Son of God , he is some¬ 
thing far greater, far more sublime and far more powerful 
than the insignificant animal described as a man in our 
scientific works on anthropology. 

Well may Alan who knows his true nature be proud of 
his nobility and power; well may the man known to 
external science be ashamed of his weakness. Well may 
the former consider himself superior to the gods, and the 
latter, a worm of the earth, crawl into a corner and ask for 
the protection of a real man who is a god. The true Man 
is a divine being, whose power extends as far as his 
thoughts can reach ; the irrational man is a compound of 
semi-animal forces, subject to their caprices and whims, 
with a spark of divine fire in him to enable him to control 


s 5 8 


DIGNITY OF MAN. 


them, but which spark, in the great majority of cases, is 
left to smoulder and vanish. The former is immortal, the 
latter lives a few years among the illusions of life. The 
former knows that he lives for ever in the All, the latter 
expects to die, or perhaps to obtain a lease on his personal 
existence by the favor of some personal god who may 
permit him to carry his iniquities into a sphere, in which 
only the pure can exist.* 

There are three kinds of knowledge, the useful, the 
useless, and the harmful. The most useful knowledge is 
the one which relates to the essential nature of man, to his 
destiny, and to his possibilities. There is no higher 
knowledge than the practical knowledge of religion ; that 
is to say, the knowledge of all that relates to the spiritual* 
emotional, and physical nature of man. He who has thi^ 
knowledge is necessarily the true physician for the soul as 
well as for the body, and he heals by the power of his 
spirit. An attempt to separate religion from science and 
the practice of morality from the practice of medicine 
leads to illusions of the most dangerous kind. 

The useless knowledge is the knowledge of, or rather 
the adherence to, illusions and falsehoods ; it is no real 
knowledge, although it embraces a great deal of what is 
considered of great importance in civilized countries that 
men should know. 

The harmful knowledge consists in scientific attain¬ 
ments without any corresponding perception of the moral 
aspect of truth. It is only partial knowledge, because it 
recognizes only a part of the truth. A high intellectual 
development without any corresponding growth of morality 
is a curse to mankind. Knowledge to be good must be 
illuminated by Wisdom; knowledge without wisdom is 
dangerous to possess. Misunderstanding and misapplica¬ 
tion of truths are the source of suffering. 

The attainment of power is often not accompanied with 
any proper understanding how to apply that power wisely. 
The invention of the fulminates of mercury, of gunpowder 
and nitro-glycerine, has caused much suffering to a large 
part of humanity. Not that the substances applied, oi 
the forces which are liberated, are intrinsically evil, but 


Revelations xxi. M . 



DANGEROUS KNOWLEDGE. 


259 


their misapplication leads to evil results. If all men were 
intelligent enough to understand the laws which govern 
them, and wise enough to employ them for good purposes 
only, no evil results would follow. 

If we proceed a step further and imagine intellectual 
but wicked and selfish people possessed not only of the 
power to employ explosives, poisonous drugs, and medi¬ 
cines to injure others, but able to send their own invisible 
poisonous will to a distance, to leave at will the prison- 
house of the physical body and go in their astral forms 
to kill or injure others, the most disastrous results would 
follow. Such forbidden knowledge has been and is some¬ 
times possessed by people with criminal tendencies, a fact 
which is universally known in the East, and upon the pos¬ 
sibility and actuality of such, facts have been established 
on many occasions, and among others by many of the 
witch trials of the Middle Ages. Modern scientists may 
now laugh at these facts, but the doctors of law, of medi¬ 
cine, and of theology of their times, were as sure of their 
knowledge then as their modern representatives are of 
their own opinions to-day, and the former had as many 
intellectual capacities as the latter. The only difference is 
that the former knew these facts, but gave a wrong explan¬ 
ation ; the latter refuse to examine them, and give no 
explanation at all. 

Man is continually surrounded by unseen influences, and 
the astral plane is swarming with entities and forces, 
which are acting upon him for good or for evil, according 
to his good or evil inclinations. At the present stae . of 
evolution man has a physical body, which is admirably 
adapted to modify the influence from the astral plane, and 
to shelter him against the “ monsters of the deep.” 

If the physical body is in good health, it acts as an 
armor, and, moreover, man has the power, by a judicious 
exercise of his will, to so concentrate the odic aura by which 
he is surrounded, as to render his armor impenetrable; but 
if by bad health, by a careless expenditure of vitality, or by 
the practice of mediumship, he disperses through space 
the odic emanations belonging to his sphere, his physical 
armor will become weakened and unable to protect him; 
he becomes the victim of elementaries and elemental forces, 
his mental faculties will lose their balance, and sooner or 
later he will, like the symbolical Adam and Eve , know 


260 


DANGERS OF THE ASTRAL PLANE. 


that he is naked. , and exposed to influences which he can¬ 
not repel. Such is the result for which those ignorantly 
crave who wish to obtain knowledge without correspond¬ 
ing morality. To supply the ignorant or weak with 
powers of destruction would be like providing children 
with gunpowder and matches for play. 

Only an intelligent and well-balanced mind can discrim¬ 
inate properly and dive into the hidden mysteries of Nature. 
“Only the pure in heart can see God.” He who has 
reached that stage need not search for an Adept to instruct 
him ; the higher intelligences will be attracted to him, and 
become his instructor, in the same manner as he may be 
attracted by the beauty of an animal or of a flower. 

A harp does not invent sound but obeys the hand of a 
master, and the more perfect the instrument, the sweeter 
may be the music. A diamond does not originate light, 
but reflects it, and the purer the diamond the purer will 
be its lustre. Man does not invent original thought, will, 
and intelligence. He is a mirror in which the thought of 
God and the imagery of nature is reflected, an instrument 
through which the eternal will or the animal will expresses 
itself; a pearl filled with a drop of water from the uni¬ 
versal ocean of intelligence. 

“Ifyou eat from the tree of true knowledge you will 
surely die.” Your personality will be swallowed up by a 
realization of the fact that personal isolation is only an 
illusion, and that you are one with the all. But as your 
personality dies, a greater truth opens before you, and 
you become not only God-like, but God. 

He who ascends to the top of a high mountain need not 
inquire for somebody to bring him pure air. Pure air sur¬ 
rounds him there on all sides. The realm of wisdom is 
not limited, and he whose mind is receptive will not 
suffer from want of divine influx to feed his aspiration. 

The school in which the occultist graduates has many 
classes, each class representing a life. The days of vaca¬ 
tion may arrive before the lesson is learned, and what has 
been learned may be forgotten during the time of vacation ; 
but still the impression remains, and a thing once learned 
is easily learned again. This accounts for the different 
talents with which men are endowed, and for their propen¬ 
sities for good or for evil. No effort is lost, every cause 
creates a corresponding effect, no favors are granted, no 


THE SCHOOL OF THE OCCULTIST. 261 

injustice takes place. Blind to bribes and deaf to appeals 
is the law of justice, dealing out to every one according to 
his merits or demerits ; but he who has no selfish desire 
for reward, and no cowardly fear of punishment, but who 
dares to act rightly because he cannot do wrong, identifies 
himself with the law, and in the equilibrium of the law will 
he find his Power. 

The second requirement is 

TO WILL. 

If we do not want to receive the truth we will not obtain it, 
because it rests in the spirit, and the spirit is a power that 
exercises the universal law of attraction; it attracts the 
mind that corresponds to its vibrations, and is repulsed by 
discords. 

Men believe that they love the truth, but there are few 
that desire it. They love only welcome truths ; those that 
are unwelcome are usually rejected. Opinions which flatter 
the vanity and are in harmony with accustomed modes of 
thought are accepted; strange truths are often regarded 
with astonishment and driven away from the door. Men 
are often afraid of that which they do not know, and, not 
knowing the truth, they are afraid to receive it. They ask 
new truths for their passports, and if they do not bear the 
stamp of some fashionable authority they are looked upon 
as illegitimate children, and are not permitted to grow. 

How shall we learn to love the truth ? By being obe¬ 
dient to the law. How can we become convinced of its good¬ 
ness ? By doing our duty. Irrational man asks for external 
proofs, but true man requires no other certificate for 
the truth but its own appearance. There can be no differ¬ 
ence between speculative and practical knowledge; an 
opinion based upon mere speculation is no knowledge. 
Knowledge can only be attained by speculation, if the 
speculation is accompanied by experience. Those who 
want to know the truth must practise it; those who cannot 
practise it will not know it; speculations without practice 
can only lead to doubtful opinions. 

Man can have no actual desire for a thing which he does 
neither feel nor see, and which he therefore not knows. 
How can we love a thing of which we know not whether it 


WILL. 


ate 

is good or evil, whether it will benefit or injure us, if we 
approach it. Many followers of the church profess to love 
God, and have not the remotest c. ception of what God 
is. Many profess to love Christ, and despise and reject 
Him if they meet Him in man. Such a “ love of God and 
Christ ” is a pretence and an illusion, it exists only in the 
brain and not in the heart. We can only love that of which 
we know that it is good, because we feel it to be so ; and 
where else could we feel the presence of God except within 
our own heart? To learn to desire God means therefore 
to enter a mental state in which we can feel the presence 
of the Divine principle within our own heart; to learn to 
know God means to learn to know our own Divine Self. 

To enter a state in which universal truth may come to 
our direct perception, no intellectual labor but spiritual 
development is required. We must become master of our 
own thoughts and desires, and be able to sink our thoughts 
into the invisible centre of All. 

We do not have far to go in search of that Centre , it 
exists within the heart of each human being; for the soul 
of each human being is an exact image of the soul of the 
universe, and as the great Spiritual Sun exists in the centre 
of the Universe, likewise the image of that sun exists within 
the heart of each human being. If we only permit this 
divine light to shine within our own soul, we will know the 
truth, for the truth is only one, and the one existing within 
our own heart is identical with the one existing within the 
centre of the universe. 

If we desire to see the pure light of the terrestrial sun, 
the atmosphere must not be obscured by clouds and fogs ; 
if we desire to see the eternal light of the spiritual Sun 
existing within the heart, the realm of the soul must not be 
clouded by material desires. We must by the power of 
our will dispel the fogs and mists created by the vapors 
coming from the material plane. We must become our own 
masters in our own house. To do this requires effort and 
perseverance, and the average investigator, finding it easier 
to accept ready-made creeds, than to educate his spiritual 
faculties, usually remains satisfied with his own supersti¬ 
tions, or argues himself into a belief that spiritual causes 
cannot be known. 

Men do not seriously desire the truth, because they 
cannot estimate what they do not know and they do not 


THE CENTRE. 


*63 

know it because they cannot reach what they do not 
seriously desire. Mere curiosity, or a wish to learn to 
know the truth at our leisure without neglecting the claims 
of the elementary kingdom composing our soul, cannot 
attract the spirit. Man is chained to the kingdom of the 
Elementals with a thousand chains. The inhabitants of his 
soul appear before him in their most seductive forms. If 
they are driven away they change their masks and renew 
their petitions in some other form. But the chains by 
which man is bound are forged by his own desire. His 
vices do not cling to him against his will. He clings to 
them, and they will desert him as soon as he rises up in 
the strength and dignity of his manhood and shakes them 
off. There is a method, by which we may, without any 
active effort, obtain that which we desire, and this is that 
we should desire nothing except what the divine spirit 
desires within our own heart . 

The third requirement is, therefore, 

TO DARE. 

We must dare to act and throw off our desires, instead of 
waiting patiently until they desert us. We must dare to 
tear ourselves loose from accustomed habits, irrational 
thoughts, and selfish considerations, and from everything 
that is an impediment to our recognition of the truth. We 
must dare to conquer ourselves and to conquer the world ; 
dare to face the ridicule of the ignorant, the vilifications of 
bigots, the haughtiness of the vain, the contempt of the 
learned, and the envy of the small; dare to proclaim the 
truth if it is useful to do so, and dare to be silent if taunted 
by the fool.* We must dare to face poverty, suffering, and 
isolation, and dare to act under all circumstances according 
to our highest conception of truth. 

All this might be easily accomplished, if the will of man 
were free ; if man were his own master and not bound with 
the chains of the soul; but man is a relative being, and as 
such his will can only be free to a certain extent; it can 
only enjoy a relative liberty as long as it is a slave to 
desire. Man may perform certain acts and leave others 


• Prov. xxvi. 4. 


*>4 


DARING. 


undone if he chooses; but his internal desire determines 
his choice, and man acts in obedience to it. A man who 
is free of external desires has the power to will that which 
his nature does not desire, and not to will that to which the 
desires of that nature attract him. 

To make the will free, action is required, and each action 
strengthens the will, and each unselfish deed increases its 
power. In unity is power . To render our will powerful 
we may unite it with the will of others, and if the desires of 
the others are different from ours, our will thereby becomes 
free from our own desires. In action is strength. If we 
oppose our will to the will of others, by acting against the 
desires of others, we increase its strength, but we become 
thereby isolated from others. 

There is only one universal power of will, because 
divinity is a whole. It may act in the direction for good 
and in the direction for evil; but its action for good is the 
strongest, because it emanates from the eternal source of 
good. This will-power being the collective sum of all 
will-power in the universe, is the power that moves the 
worlds. It is necessarily immeasurably stronger than any 
individual will-power can possibly be, because the whole is 
larger than the part, and the infinite greater than the 
finite. He who unites his own will with the universal will 
becomes powerful; he who exercises his will by opposing 
it may become strong, but while the former attains eternal 
life with the whole, the latter causes his own destruction, 
as he will finally be crushed by the opposing force, which 
is immeasurably stronger than he. Dare to obey the Law> 
and you will become your own Master , and the Lord over 
all. 

Philosophical courage is a quality for which men are 
respected everywhere. The Red Indian prides himself at 
his indifference to physical pain, the Fakir undergoes 
tortures to strengthen his will-power, the civilized soldier 
is eager to prove his contempt for danger, and to measure 
his strength with the strength of the enemy. But there are 
deeds to perform that require a courage of a superior kind. 
It requires only momentary outbursts of power or tempor¬ 
ary efforts of will to perform a daring deed on the physical 
plane, and after it is accomplished It is followed by satis¬ 
faction and rest; but in the realm of the soul there is 
no rest for those who have not succeeded in eradicating 


SILENCE. 


*5 


that which is evil. A continual and unremitted strain is 
needed to keep the emotions subjected, and this strain is 
rendered still more fatiguing by the circumstance that it 
depends entirely on your own will whether or not we will 
endure it, and that if we relax the bridle and allow our 
emotions to run free and disorderly, sensual gratification 
is the result. It requires a courage of the highest order to 
act under all circumstances in obedience to the law. Long 
may the battle last, but each victory strengthens the will ; 
each act of submission renders it more powerful, until at 
last the combat is ended, and over the battlefield where 
the remnants of the slain desires are exposed to the 
decomposing action of the elements hovers the spiritual 
eagle, rising towards the sun and enjoying the serene 
tranquility of the ethereal realm. The only true way to 
obtain courage is to rise above fear. 

Metals are purified by fire and the spirit is purified by 
suffering. Only when the molten mass has cooled can we 
judge of the progress of the purification; only when a 
victory over the emotions is gained, and peace follows after 
the struggle, can the spirit rest to contemplate and realize 
the beauty of eternal truth. In vain will men attempt to 
iisten to the voice of truth during the clash of contending 
desires and opinions, only in the silence that follows the 
storm can the voice of truth be heard.* 

The fourth requirement to the recognition of the truth is 
therefore 


TO BE SILENT. 

This means that we must not allow any desire to speak in 
our heart, but only the voice of the truth; because the truth 
is a jealous goddess and suffers no rivals. He who selects 
wisdom for the bride of his soul must woo her with his 
whole heart and dismiss the concubines from the bridal 
chamber of his soul. He must clothe her in the purity of 
his affection and ornament her with the gold of his love, 
for wisdom is modest, she does not adorn herself but waits 
until she is adorned by her lover. She cannot be bought 
with money nor with promises, her love is only gained by 
acts of devotion. Science is only the handmaid of wisdom, 


*“ Light on the Path,” by M. C 





MED IT A TJOAT. 


and he who makes love to the servant will be rejected by 
the mistress ; but he who sacrifices his whole being to 
wisdom will be united with her. 

The BhagwatGita, says : “ He who thinketh constantly 
of me, his mind undiverted by any other object, will find 
me. I will at all times be easily found by a constant 
devotion to me.” 

The Christian Mystic, Jacob Boehme, an illuminated 
seer, expressed the same truth, in the form of a dialogue 
between the master and his disciple, as follows : 

The disciple said to the master : “ How can I succeed 
in arriving at that supersensual life, in which I may see 
and hear the Supreme P ” 

The master answered : “ If you can only for a moment 
enter in thought into the formless, where no creature 
resides, you will hear the voice of the Supreme.” 

The disciple said : “ Is this far or near ? ” 

The master answered : “ It is in yourself, and if you can 
command only for one hour the silence of your desires, 
you will hear the inexpressible words of the Supreme. If 
your own will and self are silent in you, the perception of 
the eternal will be manifest through you ; God will hear, 
and see, and talk through you ; your own hearing, desiring 
and seeing prevents you to see and hear the Supreme.”* 

These directions are identical with those prescribed by 
the practice of Raja-Yog , by which the holy men of the 
East unite their minds with the formless and infinite. 
Religious services are calculated to elevate the mind into 
the region of the formless, and, in fact, all religious systems 
can have no other legitimate object than to teach methods 
how to attain such states. Churches are not worthy 
the name of church, which means a spiritual union , unless 
they serve as schools in which the science of uniting one¬ 
self with the eternal fountain of life is practically taught. 
But it is easier to allow one’s mind to revel among the 
multifarious forms and attractions of the material plane, 
and to listen to the Syren song of the Elementals inhabit¬ 
ing the soul, than to enter the apparently dark caves of the 
formless, where at first no sound is heard in the eternal 
stillness of night but the echo of our voice, but where alone 
true power resides. It is easier to let our minds be co»- 


• Jacob Boehme : “ Theosophical Writings,” book vi. 



7 HE AWAKENING. 


267 


trolled by thoughts that come and go without our bidding 
than to hold fast to a thought and command it to remain, 
and to close the doors of the soul to all thoughts that have 
not the seal of truth impressed upon their forms ; and this 
is the reason why the majority of men and women prefer 
the illusions of finite life to the eternal realities of the 
iufinite—why they prefer sufferings to happiness, and 
ignorance to a knowledge of truth. 

To be silent means to let no other language be heard 
within the heart but the language of God, to listen to the 
voice of Divine Wisdom speaking within the heart; but 
this state will be arrived at only after the storm of the 
passions, the battle of desires, and the conflict of the 
intellectual forces is over. 

He who has learned to know, to will, to dare, and to be 
silent, is upon the true path that leads to immortal life, and 
will know how to practise interior meditation or yog; but 
by those who move merely in the sensual plane, or whose 
minds are concentrated upon external things of the physical 
or intellectual plane, even the meaning of these words will 
not be understood. 

Various instructions are given in the books of the East 
in regard to the practice of this interior meditation, but 
they all teach the same thing, namely, a concentration of 
man’s higher consciousness to a single point within his own 
centre. 

In the Oupnekhata the following directions are 
given :— 

“ Breathe deep and slow, and concentrate your unwaver¬ 
ing attention into the midst of your body, into the region 
of the heart. The lamp in your body will then be protect¬ 
ed against wind and motion, and your whole body will 
become illuminated. You must withdraw all your senses 
within yourself like a turtle, which withdraws its members 
within the shell. Enter your own heart and guard it, and 
Brahma will enter it like a fire or a stroke of lightning. In 
the midst of a big fire in your heart will be a small flame, 
and in the centre of it will be Atma .” 

Herocarcas, an abbot of a convent upon the mount 
Athosy gives to his monks the following directions to 
acquire the power of true clairvoyance : “ Sit alone in your 
room, after having the door locked against intrusion, con¬ 
centrate your mind upon the region of the navel and try to 


266 


SOUND. 


see with that. Try to find the seat of your heart (sink 
your consciousness into your heart), where the centre of 
power resides. At first you will find nothing but darkness; 
but if you continue for days and nights without fatigue, 
you will see light, and experience inexpressible things. 
When the spirit once recognizes his own centre in the 
heart, he will know what he never knew before, and there 
will be nothing hidden before his sight, whether in heaven 
nor upon the earth.” 

Let us compare with these statements one received from 
an unlearned person, who possesses the power to see 
interior truths. He says : “ Sink your thoughts downward 
into the centre of your being, and you will find there a 
germ which, if continually nourished by pure and holy 
thoughts, will grow into a power that will extend and ramify 
through all parts of your body. Your hands and feet and 
your interior organs will become alive ; a sun will appear 
within your heart and illuminate your whole being. In this 
light you will see the the present, the past, and the future, 
and by its aid you will attain the true knowledge of self.” * 

Man is himself a thought, pervading the ocean of Mind. 
If his soul is in perfect accord with the truth, the truth will 
unite itself with his soul. A talented musician will not 
need a scientific calculation of the vibrations of sound to 
know whether a melody which he hears is melodious or 
not; a person who is one with the truth will recognize 
himself in everything that is true. 

What is sound ? If everything is fundamentally will, 
sound can be nothing else but a manifestation of will. 
Will may act either relatively, unconsciously, or consciously, 
or even in a self-conscious state. Sound manifests the 
same attributes. The noise made by the knock of a hammer 
carries with itself no emotions or intelligence ; it can 
awaken them only by means of association of ideas. But 
a piece of music or a song carries with it the qualities 
with which it has been endowed by the musician or the 
singer. Music is a language that speaks to the heart 
without any previous agreement as to what sounds are 
meant to signify certain words, as is done by telegraphing. 

Music produces in every receptive soul the sentiments 


J. Kerning, “ Key.” , 



KEELEY MOTOR ,. 


269 


that its melodies are intended to represent; and the more 
the music is a true representation of these sentiments, the 
more will this be the case. Likewise there is sound carrying 
intelligence. The words spoken by a person awaken 
corresponding thoughts in the mind of an intelligent person, 
and they will be impressive in proportion as they are true. 
If he who tells a lie does not at least for the time being 
imagine it to be true, his words will act at best upon the 
imagination, but not upon the will. A good actor knows 
that he must imagine himself to be the person whose part 
he plays, if he wants to produce the desired effect. Intelli¬ 
gent speech carries with it the power to induce intelligent 
thoughts in an intelligent being, as the sunshine carries 
with it life to the seeds in the soil. There is a still higher 
form of sound; it is not known to everybody. It is the 
self-conscious divine word, that speaks within the heart of 
the awakened. 

The spirit is like a breath. To the eloquent speaker, 
being inspired by the truth of what he says, words will 
come without consideration; they form themselves in his 
soul and not in his brain. In him who is conscious of 
speaking the truth, it is not so much the man that speaks, 
as rather the truth speaking through him, and he may 
inspire his hearers with his own sentiments, even if they do 
not understand his language, because the will emanating 
from him is endowed with his own emotional attributes. 

Every sound is vitalized, if it comes from a living source; 
but it can have no higher vitality than the source from 
which it originates. A sound produced by the striking of 
a fiddle bow upon a tuning fork can manifest no higher 
consciousness than that of the tuning fork, no matter how 
it is treated mechanically. A merely mechanical noise 
cannot produce living effects, no more than a piece of dead 
wood cause a tree to grow in the soil. It cannot be the 
carrier of life, unless it comes from a living being. 

The attempts that have been made to “ vitalize ” sound 
by merely mechanical means, and to cause it to act with 
life and intelligence, have failed on account of a misunder¬ 
standing of that fundamental law of nature, according to 
which forms dc not produce principles, but are merely 
vehicles or instruments for their manifestation. If I want to 
vitalize anything, I can only vitalize it with my own vitality, 
having no other vitality at my command, nor can I cause 
the universal principle of life to vitalize anything accord- 


LANGUAGE OF NATURE. 


»JQ 

ing to my win, unless I have obtained command over it by 
becoming divine. Everybody is continually “ vitalizing/’ 
himself and the words which he speaks ; but only a self- 
conscious divine spirit could spiritualize inanimate things. 

The word of God, being God itself, can vitalize sound. 
It is the creative Power in the universe. He in whom the 
divinity has not become self-conscious cannot command 
that power. There is, therefore, no danger that the world 
would be exploded, if “ the Adepts were to let the secret 
out as to how the trick is done.” Such a revelation would 
be as useless to mankind as to tell a beggar how he could 
invest his money, if he had any to invest. 

The will of a person may “ vitalize ” apparently inanimate 
objects, as is often done at spiritistic seances ; but in that 
case it is accomplished by its action upon living invisible 
beings, and without any conscious action of the medium. 
Therefore, the wonders of the mechanical application of 
living sound, if any such have ever been performed, can be 
due only to mediumship. 

To act consciously and intelligently upon the elemental 
powers of nature requires the possession of an intelligent 
and self-conscious power, the magic power of the (spiritual) 
will of an Adept. Merely mechanical combinations can 
produce nothing but merely mechanical results. 

Natural forces are subject to natural law, and, therefore, 
intellectual man, acting in accordance with natural law, 
can make them subservient to his purposes, by establish¬ 
ing the conditions under which they will act; but the divine 
Word of God is above nature, and above any conditions 
that man can establish. Man can govern it in no other 

* It is an absolute impossibility to transform matter into motion or 
sound, or sound into life or spirit; because the seven forms of eternal 
nature are eternal and unchangeable. All that can be changed is their 
mode of action. Darkness cannot be changed into light, although it 
may be penetrated by it; neither does a red-hot iron change into light, 
although light becomes manifest therein by means of the heat. “ Each 
of the original forms of eternal nature retains forever its own centre.” 
(“ Jacob Bochmc .” « Threefold Life.”) 

It is true that each of the seven principles contains potentially the 
other six, and that the higher may be awakened or “ liberated ” in the 
lower ; but this can only be done by the action of the higher inducing 
the corresponding latent higher principle to become active within the 
lower. Merely mechanical motion cannot call life or consciousness into 
action in a form, without the action of a living and conscious power to 
act upon the life and consciousness latent therein. 



UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. 


2 7 l 

way, than by becoming one with divine Law ; but then he 
ceases to be a man, and becomes a God, governing his own 
self and all the laws of his nature. 

Every form in nature is a symbol of an idea and repre¬ 
sents a sign or a letter. A succession of such symbols 
forms a language, and the totality of all forms in nature is 
the language of nature. He who is a true child of nature, 
that means to say, he whose will is pure and whose mind 
free of error, will understand the language of nature and 
know the character of everything. His mind will be like 
a clear mirror, wherein the attributes of natural things are 
reflected and enter the field of his consciousness. 

Such a language means a radiation of the essence of 
things into the centre of the human mind, and a radiation 
from that centre into the universal ocean of mind. Man 
in a state of purity, being an image and an external expres¬ 
sion of the highest principle, is able to reflect and repro¬ 
duce the highest truth in its original purity, and man’s 
expressions ought, therefore, to be a perfect reproduction or 
echo of the impressions which he receives ; but average 
man being immersed in matter, as a result of a combination 
of principles on a lower scale of evolution, receives the 
pure original rays only in a state of refraction, and can 
therefore reproduce them only in an imperfect condition. 
He has wandered away from the sun of truth, and behold¬ 
ing it from a distance it appears to him only as a small star, 
that may perhaps vanish from sight. Everything in Nature 
has its name, and he who has the power to call a thing by 
its proper name can make it subservient to his will. But 
the proper name of a thing is not the arbitrary name given 
to it by man, but the expression of the totality of its 
powers and attributes, because the powers and attributes 
of each being are intimately connected with its means 
of expression, and between both exists the most exact 
proportion in regard to measure, time and condition. 

There is only one genuine and interior language for man, 
the symbols of which are natural and must be intelligible 
to all, and this language is a direct communication of 
thought. This interior language is the parent of the 
exterior one, and being caused by the radiation of the first 
cause which is unity, and with whom all men are one, it 
follows that if the original irradiation of the supreme ray 
were existing in all men in its original purity, all men 
would understand the same interior language, and also the 


UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. 


*72 

same exterior one, because the latter is the external expres¬ 
sion of the former. In fact this original language still 
exists, but few understand it, and none can learn it except 
by the process of interior evolution. The interior lan¬ 
guage, breathes—so to say—spirit ; while the exterior on* 
is only a succession of sounds. 

Each word in that interior language is the character of 
the thing itself, a sign and symbol which men cultivate 
unknowingly; each is the centre of each being, and who¬ 
ever reaches that centre is in possession of the word and 
the sign. These symbols are the essential characteristics 
which distinguish one individual or group of individuals 
from others; by these symbols are harmonious souls 
attracted, and by them one artist recognizes another artist 
in beholding his works without seeing his person. 

Men have ever been desiring an universal language. 
Such an universal language cannot be arbitrarily con¬ 
structed, or, if so constructed, would be more difficult to 
learn than any other. True language must express the 
harmony of the soul with the nature of things, and as long 
as there is distinction of character and disharmony there 
can be no universal, harmonious language. 

But if there is an universal language of nature, there is 
also a universal language of God, and this divine language 
is the Word of God that speaks within the heart of the 
awakened. It is the voice of the Truth itself that speaks 
the Word, and if you cannot hear that voice, you are not 
called to teach, because it would then not be the truth 
speaking through your mouth, but the devil of your own 
conceited self. He who lives in the spirit of this world and 
in his sins, cannot truly teach any one. He who does not 
live in the spirit, can have no spiritual life and cannot 
impart it to others. He may repeat like a parrot what he 
has heard, or tell what he has read in books. He may say 
what he fancies to be true, but he is not an instrument for 
the manifestation of truth. 

The only true teacher is the Truth , the Word , the Christ . 
He says : “ I am the light of the world, and he who follows 
Me will have life eternal.” He does not say : “ Go to this 
parson or that professor and get from him a description of 
what he thinks how the light is supposed to look,” but He 
advises us to follow Him and find the true understanding 
ourselves. Only when all the book-makers on theosophical 
subjects will be in possession of the living truth and of 


L Y IN G. 


273 


self knowledge in regard to what they are writing about, 
will we have a true divine science ; only when all the min¬ 
isters of the church will become ministers and servants of 
God, so that God may speak through them, will we have 
the true religion taught. 

There is a threefold expression of the divine principle ; 
a physical, and intellectual, and a divine word. The first 
is the language of nature, the second the language of art, 
the third one is power. Each thought is represented by a 
certain allegorical sign ; each being is a characteristic 
symbol and living exterior image of its interior state. 
Each body is the symbol of an invisible and corresponding 
power, and Man, in whom the highest powers are contained, 
is the most noble symbol of nature, the first and most 
beautiful letter in the alphabet of earth. For every thought 
there is an outward expression, and if we have a thought 
which we cannot express by symbols, it does not follow 
that such symbols do not exist, but that we are unac¬ 
quainted with them. A word or a language is the expres¬ 
sion of thought, and to be perfect it must give perfect 
expression to the thought it is intended to convey. By 
giving a false expression to thought the power of language 
is lost. In our present state of civilization words are often 
used more for the purpose of concealing than revealing 
thought. Lying is therefore disgraceful, and involves a 
loss of power and subsequent degradation. To give pure 
and perfect expression to thought is White Magic; to act 
upon the imagination so as to create false impressions is 
witchcraft, deception and falsehood. Such witchcraft is 
practised every day and almost in every station of life, 
from the priest in the pulpit who wheedles his audience 
into a belief that he or his church possesses the keys of 
heaven, down to the merchant who cheats with his goods, 
and to the old maid who secures a husband by the means 
of artificial teeth and false hair; down to the physician 
who makes a living by exciting a morbid imagination in 
his patients and persuading them that they are “ really 
sick.” Such practices are publicly denounced and silently 
followed; they will lead to a universal disappearance of 
faith and trust, they will necessarily lead to active evil and 
bring destruction upon the nation that allows them to 
grow; because, as the power of good increases by practice, 
in the same manner increases the po;ver of evil. 

Man’s mission is to do good; that means to do that 


274 


THE SECRET OF BEAUTY AND YOUTH. 


which is most useful for his development. By doing good, 
sensual matter is eliminated ; his material constitution will 
become more and more refined, and his interior illuminated 
by the light of wisdom, until even his physical body may 
assume the attributes of the astral form, and man himsell 
be a living soul. Therein alone lies the secret of eternal 
beauty and youth, the true Elixir of Life. By doing evil 
he attracts to himself the unintelligent and material prim 
ciples of Nature, the elements of evil; his higher principles 
become more and more material and heavy until, dragged 
into the mire of matter by his own weight, he is unable 
to rise to the light, he becomes metaphysically petrified, 
and his power of intuition lost. 

Man’s actions are his writings. By putting his thoughts 
into action, he expresses them and records them in the 
book of life. He writes them all over his body and upon 
his face ; they will appear in the lustre of his eyes and in 
the grace of his movements. An angelic soul cannot fail 
to impress its beauty upon the form. 

Evil acts are followed by a degradation of character, 
producing an increased corporification of sensual elements 
and an incrustation of the soul. Selfish desires bleach the 
hair before their time, bend the back, wrinkle the face, 
and are the cause of endless ills; for all of which there is 
no other remedy but goodness of will. 

Good actions dissolve existing incrustations produced 
by evil deeds, and re-establish the soul in its former con* 
dition. Repentance, unless followed by action, is useless. 
It is like the inflammation caused by a thorn in the flesh i 
it causes pain by gathering to its assistance the vital forces 
of the body; but unless the thorn is removed by the 
active intervention of the individual, an abscess and putre¬ 
faction will be the result. Man’s acts are his creations, 
they give form to his thoughts. The motive endows them 
with character, the will furnishes them with life. 

An intention is useless as long as it is not put into action. 
A sign, a letter, or a word is useles unless it conveys a mean¬ 
ing which is realized by him who employs it; a symbo? 
represents an idea, but no symbol can be efficacious unless 
it is intellectually applied. The most potent magical sign, 
are. useless to him who cannot realize what they mean, 
while to him who is well versed in occult science, a single 
point, a line, or any geometrical figure, may convey a vast 
leaning. 


THE PENTAGRAM. 275 

Let us in conclusion attempt to explain exoterically 
and esoterically a few of the most important magical signs. 
We may succeed to a certain extent in giving these explan¬ 
ations in words ; but their secret spiritual meaning cannot 
be expressed in language ; language can merely attempt to 
guide the reader into a region of thought in which he may 
be able to perceive the secret meaning with the eyes of 
the spirit: 



The Pentagram or the Five-pointed Star . 


In its external appearance it is merely a geometrical 
figure, found everywhere as a trade mark or ornament. 
Superstitious and credulous people once believed, that if 
it were drawn upon the doors of their houses it would 
protect them against the intrusions of the sorcerer and the 
witch. 

In its esoteric signification the four lower triangles 
represent the four elementary forces of nature, and as the 
lines of each triangle are intimately connected or iden¬ 
tical with those forming the other lines, the sum of these 
lines forming only one broken line without any interruption, 
likewise the four lower elements are intimately connected 
and identical with the fifth element, the quintessence of all 
things, situated at the top of the figure ; representing the 
head, the seat of intelligence in man. 

The spiritual knowledge of the Five-pointed Star is 
identical with its practical application. Let us beware 




276 


THE SIX-POINTED STAR. 


that the figure is always well drawn, leaving no open 
space, through which the enemy can enter and disturb the 
harmony existing in the Pentagon in the centre. Let us 
keep the figure always upright, with the topmost triangle 
pointing to heaven, for it is the seat of reason and Wisdom, 
and if the figure is reversed ignorance and evil will be the 
result. Let the lines be straight, so that all the triangles 
will be harmonious and of equal size, so that the symbol 
will grow without any abnormal development of one prin¬ 
ciple at the cost of another. Then the lower triangles 
will send their quintessence to the top, the seat of 
intelligence, and the top will supply the lower triangles 
with power and stimulate them to grow. Then when the 
time of probation and development is over, the triangles 
will be absorbed by the Pentagon in the centre and form 
into a square within the invisible circle connecting the 
apices of the triangles, and our destiny will be fulfilled. 
There is no higher duty for man to perform, than to keep 
the Five-pointed Spiritual Star intact; it will be his 
protection during life and his salvation in the hereafter. 



The Double Triangle or Six-pointed Star. 

This is one of the most important magical signs, and 
spiritually applied it invests man with power. Its exoteric 







THE SIX POINTED STAR. 


*77 


meaning is merely two triangles joined together, so that 
they partially cover each other, while the apex of one 
joints upwards and the apex of the other downward. It 
is sometimes surrounded by a circle or by a snake biting 
its tail, and sometimes with a tan in the middle. 

Its esoteric meaning is very extensive. It represents 
among other things the descent of spirit into matter, and 
the ascension of matter to spirit, which is continually 
taking place within the circle of eternity, represented by 
the snake, the symbol of wisdom. Six points are seen in 
the star, but the seventh cannot be seen; nevertheless the 
seventh point must exist, although it has not become 
manifest; because without a centre there could be no six- 
pointed star, nor any other figure existing. 

But who can describe in words the secret or spiritual 
signification of the six-pointed star and its invisible centre ? 
Who can intellectually grasp and describe the beauties 
and truths which it represents? Only he who can prac¬ 
tically apply this sign will grasp its full meaning. Knowing 
that sign practically means to realize the nature of “ God " 
and the laws of eternal nature, it means to know the 
process of evolution and involution going on within the 
microcosm of man and corresponding to those of the 
macrocosm of nature. It means to possess the power to 
enter within one’s own interior soul and to behold the 
majesty of God in His light. It means to forget one’s 
own self and the world of illusions and to be absorbed in 
the depths of eternity, where thought ceases and only 
adoration exists. To him who cannot realize within his 
heart the divine mysteries of nature, the blinding light 
shining from the centre of the figure has no existence; but 
the enlightened sees in that invisible centre the great 
Spiritual Sun, the heart of the Cosmos, from which Love 
and Light and Life are radiating for ever. He sees the 
seven primordial rays of that light shining into invisible 
matter and forming visible worlds upon which men and 
animals live and die, and are happy or discontented 
according to their conditions. He sees how by the breath 
of that invisible centre suns and stars, planets and 
satellites are evolved, and how, if the day of creation of 
forms is over, it reabsorbs them into its bosom. Verily 
the six-pointed star is a most potent magical sign, and 
it requires the wisdom of God to understand it, the 


278 


THE CROSS . 


omnipotent power of the to apply it to its 

fullest extent. 

In its external signification the Christian Cross is a 
symbol of torture and death. The sight of a Cross calls 
up in the mind of the pious the memory of a historical 
event said to have taken place in Palestine some two thou¬ 
sand years ago, when a noble, good and just man was 
executed as a criminal upon a cross. If the element of 
hate is predominating in the soul organization of the 
Christian beholding the Cross, its sight may call into 
action very ‘ ‘ unchristian ’ ’ feelings about the wickedness 
of the Jews. 


O’ 

l am (WitefSL 

L 


'neo* 

Tabcshah (Earth). 


1 . 


"M 

Hour (Fire). 


R. 

Rouaeh (Air). • 

nn 

The Cross. 


The internal impression caused by the sight of the 


Compare J. R. Skinner , “ Key to Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery.” 





THE CROSS. 


279 


Cross will differ according to the standpoint from which we 
behold it. 

The esoteric meaning of the Cross is very ancient, and 
the Cross has existed as a secret symbol probably thousands 
of years ago before the Christian era. The philosophical 
Cross represents, among other things, the principle of 
matter and that of spirit intersecting each other, forming the 
quaternary which, when it is inscribed in the square, forms 
the basis of knowledge for the Occultist. The horizontal 
line represents the animal principle, for the heads of animals 
are bowed to the earth. Man is the only being upon the 
globe who stands erect; the divine principle within him 
keeps him upright, and, therefore, the perpendicular line 
is the symbol of his divinity. The cross represents Man, 
who has acted against the law, and thereby transformed 
himself into an instrument for his own torture. From the 
beginning of his existence, as a ray of the divine spiritual 
Sun, he represented a perpendicular line, cutting in the 
direction of the Universal Will of the source from which 
he emanated in the beginning. As the distance from that 
source increased, and as the ray entered into matter, it 
deviated from the originally straight line and became 
broken, creating thereby a division in its own essence and 
making two parts out of the original Unity, thus establish¬ 
ing in matter a separate will, acting not in accordance with 
univeral Law, but even in opposition to it. If man follows 
again the dictates of the Law, he will then be taken from 
the Cross and resume his former position. “To take up 
one’s Cross,” means to sacrifice one’s own desires to the 
rule of divine Law. By doing so the evil and animal 
desires remain crucified and die, but the divine element will 
be resurrected and enter the Light. 

Who can know the practical spiritual signification of the 
Cross except he who has been nailed thereon and suffered 
the pangs of crucifixion of thought and desire and of the 
mystic death ? The external Christian sees only the wooden 
Cross, but he whose spiritual perception is open sees the 
living Cross in its glory. Sublimely stands that Cross upon 
the mountain of the living Faith ; magnificent is its aspect. 
Far into space shines the light radiating from its centre and 
illuminating the darkness with its beneficent rays, which 
give life to all who behold it. Rise, oh man, up to your 


28o 


THE CROSS. 


divine dignity, so that you may see the true Cross, the true 
Light. Not the dead wooden Cross, the emblem of igno¬ 
rance and suffering, nor the glittering cross made of brass, 
the emblem of vanity, sectarianism and superstition ; but 
the Living Golden Cross, the emblem of Wisdom which 
each true Brother of the Golden and Rosy Cross carries 
deeply buried within his own heart. This cross is the 
full-grownTree ofLifeandof Knowledge, bearingthefruits 
of salvation and immortality, the dispenser of Life, the pro¬ 
tector against evil. He who knows practically the true 
mystery of the Cross isacquainted with the highest wisdom; 
he who is adorned with the true Cross is safe from all 
danger. Infinite power of the Cross ! In thee is Wisdom 
revealed. Buried deep, deep in the realm of Matter is thy 
foot, teaching us Patience ; high, high into heaven reaches 
thy crown, teaching us Faith . Lifted by Hope and ex¬ 
tended by Charity are thy arms, Light and Sunshine 
surround thee. Link upon link the chain of creation 
encircles the Cross ; worlds within worlds, forms within 
forms, illusions upon illusions surround it like clouds and 
nebulous mists ; but in the Centre is the Reality in which 
is hidden the jewel of priceless value, the Truth. Let the 
dew of heaven which comes from the true Cross descend 
into your hearts and penetrate into your soul and body, so 
that it may crystallize into form. Then will the darkness 
within your mind disappear, the veil of matter will be rent, 
and before your spiritual vision will stand revealed the 
angel of truth. 

The present material age is ever ready to reject without 
examination the symbols of the past whose meaning it 
cannot realize because it knows them not. Engaged in 
the pursuit of material pleasure, it loses sight of its true 
interest, and exchanges spiritual wealth for worthless 
bawbles. Losing sight of his destiny, man runs after a 
shadow, while others embitter their lives for the purpose of 
propitiating an angry God, and to buy from him happiness 
in a life of which they know nothing. Ruled by fear, 
many bow before the Moloch of superstition and ignorance, 
while others wilfully shut their eyes to the light of divine 
reason and madly rush into the arms of a dead and cold 
material science to perish in her stony embrace ; but the 
wise,whose far-seeing perception reaches beyond the narrow 
circle of his material surroundings, and beyond the short 


THE CROSS. 


281 


span of time which embraces his life on earth, knows that 
it is in his own power to control his future destiny. He 
raises the magic wand of his will and quiets the tempest 
raging in the astral plane. The emotions which were 
rushing to his destruction obey him and execute his orders, 
and he walks safely upon the waters under whose calm 
surface is hidden the abyss of death, while above his head 
shines the bright constellation formed of Truth, Know¬ 
ledge and Power, whose centre is Wisdom and whose 
germs can be found in the spiritual self-consciousness of 
every human being. 


THE END. 



INDEX. 


Absolute, 40, 65, 68, 74, 118, 129, 157, 165, 220, 237 
Accord, 121. 

Adam, 32, 81, 120, 129. 

Adept, 75, 85, 91, 149, 174, 188. 

Adonai, 136, 162. 

Adoration, 137, 156, 174, 253. 

After-life, 61, 94, 112, 145, 178, 181. 

Agrippa, 148. 

Alchemy, 56, 203, 213. 

Alcohol, 132, 218. 

Allegories, 27, 86, 171, 215, 241, 452. 

Ambition, 148. 

Animal food, 132, 218. 

Animal forms, 102, 140. 

Animals, 160, 218, 254. 

Apparitions, 169, 178. 

Aspirations, 100. 

Asceticism, 36, 135. 

Associations, 100. 

Astral body, 80, 98, 151, 162, 166, 186. 

Astral forms, 84, 90, 94, 98, 180, 259. 

Astral light, 63, 104, 160 171, 196, 201. 

Atheism, 74. 

Atma, 233, 242, 267. 

At*onement, 221, 240. 

Attraction, 72, 100. 129, 144, 167, 191, 201, 250. 
Aura, 82, 132. 

Awakening, 267, 271. 

Beauty, 274. 

Belief, 227, 237. 

Bhagavad Gita, 72. 252, 266. 

283 



284 


INDEX . 


Bible, 28, 236, 244, 252. 

Black Magic, 39, 84, 112, 190, 264. 

Blavatsky, 172. 

Blessing, 162. 

Blood, 98, 132. 

Boehme, Jacob, 12, 35, 77, 80, 162, 194, 242, 252, 266. 
Brain, 208, 213. 

Builders, 215. 

Brahm, 69. 

Bulwer Lytton, 86, 222. 

Capital Punishment, 152, 196. 

Cause, 61. 

Centre, 84, 253, 262, 280. 

Ceremonies, 242. 

Change, 6i, 142, 183. 

Chaos, 6. 

Character, 59, 104, 218, 232. 

Charms, 131. 

Chemistry, 83, 204. 

Christ, 33, 42, 116, 129, 139, 234, 236. 

Creation, 55, 69, 207. 

Christianity, 47, 235, 243. 

Church, 33, 75, 235, 240, 266. 

Clairvoyance, 84, 86, 149, 267. 

Colors, 83, 132. 

Communion, 221, 235, 242 
Conscience, 45. 

Consciousness, 61, 63, 95, 128, 155, 157, 176, 179. 
Conversion, 243. 

Crime, 152, 198. 

Cross, 238, 278. 

Crucifixion, 238. 

Crystallization, 231. 

Curses, 162. 

Daring, 263. 

Darkness, 40. 

Death, 47, 61, 88, 160, 175, 178, 184, 1S9. 

Degradation, 100, 102, 189. 

Deism, , 


INDEX. 


285 


Delirium, 71. 

Delusions, 52, 67, 71. 

Demons, 90, 100. 

Desire, 37, 136, 220. 

Devil, 95, 100, 160, 182, 200. 
Differentiation, 109. 

Dignity, 258. 

Diseases, 52, 115, 207. 

Disharmony, 124. 

Double, 85, 91, 169. 

Double consciousness, 92, 169, 173. 
Double triangle, 276. 

Doubt, 116, 222, 237. 

Dreams, 66, 148, 171. 

Drugs, 202. 

Dualism, 72. 

Dying, 116. 

Earth, 79, 166, 214. 

Ego, 34, 60, 159, 232. 

Elementals, 33, 86, 91, 96, 151, 180, 259 
Elements, 78, 86, 232. 

Elixir of life, 57, 118, 177, 254. 
Emotions, 49, 83, 88, 112, 134, 215 
Emanations, 83. 

Energy, 135, 176, 184- 
Epidemics, 122, 167. 

Evil, 251. 

Evolution, 212. 

Existence, 46, 62, 66, j 57, 164, 166. 
Experience, 211, 261. 

Faith, 53, 101, 116, 201, 222, 237. 

Fame, 147. 

Fakirs, 85, 203. 

Fall of Man, 90, 246. 

Father, 77, 237. 

“ Faust,” 173, 245. 

Fear, 90, 147. 

Fichte, 233. 

Fiction. 28. 


286 


INDEX. 


Fire, 78, 253. 

Five pointed star, 238, 275. 

Food, 217. 

Forgiveness, 31, 251. 

Form, 37, 47, 58, 63, 76, 81, 94, 103, 140, 196, 231, 246. 

Freedom, 33, 49, 192, 205, 223, 231, 250. 

Fumigation, 148. 

Gautama Buddha, 74, 143, 228, 233, 246, 252. 

Generation, 204. 

Germs, 35, 70. 

Ghosts, 85, 91, 98, 162. 

God, 22, 30, 39, 69, 73, 116, 139, 159, 174, 194, 207, 226, 236, 266. 
Gods, 74, 156, 225. 

Good, 249, 251. 

Goodness, 223. 

Grace, 238, 254. 

Gravitation, 128, 166. 

Growth, 38, 75, 89, 117, 220, 224, 230. 

Hades, 180, 186. 

Happiness, 41, 43, 46, 135, 155, 247. 

Harmony, 87, 120, 215. 

Hate, 72, 240. 

Haunted houses, 162. 

Heart. 213. 

Heaven, 154. 

Hell, 154, 182. 

Hermes, 185. 233. 

Herocarcas, 267. 

Holy Ghost. 77, 239. 

Hypnotism, 70, 150, 170. 

Hysteria, 88, 167. 

Ideal, 41, 75, 129. 

Ideas, 59. 

Idols, 156, 243. 

Ignorance, 246, 259. 

Illumination, 47, 50. 

Illusion, 6, 44, 71, 131, 183, 224. 

Images, 65. 


INDEX . 




imagination, 66, 94, 123, 138, 150, 153, 160, 164, 202, 227, 
Immortality, 61, 65, 152. 

Impression, 61, 65, 152. 

Incubus, 186. 

Indifference, 248. 

Induction, 70, 132. 

Infect-on, 13. 

Infidelity, 115. 

Inner man, 69, l6i, 198. 

Inner senses, 161 
Inner world, 42, 139. 

Insanity, 113, 151, 167. 

Inspiration, 169. 

Instinct, 208. 

Intellect, 15, 29, 49, 99,147, 208, 213, J37. 

Intelligence, 208. 

Intemperance, 133,220. 

Intuition, 15, 29, 49, 51. 

Invisibility, 62, 70, 81, 155. 
isolation, no. 

Jesus of Nazareth, 234, 243. 

Kama loca, 180. 

Kama rupa, 180. 

Karma, 122, 187, 233. 

Keeley motor, 270. 

Kempis, 185. 

Knowledge, 15, 69, 183, 322, 327, 246, 355. 

Krishna, 222, 244. 

Language, 252, 270. 

Law, 30, 121} 206, 226. 

Life, 20, 33, 55, 62, 103, 145, 176, 22 if 239 
Life principle, 80, 116, 242. 

Life transfer, 99, 101, 114, 176, 188. 

Light, 40, 78, 129,231. 

Logos, 5, 237. 

Lord, 235. 

Love, 43* ia8 » * 44 » a 39 » *45 > a 47 . M* 


288 


INDEX. 


Macrocosm and microcosm, 23, 52, 79, 123,210. 

Magic, II, 20, 39, 84, 112, 190,203, 247, 254. 

Magic fire, 204. 

Magic mirrors, 131, 149, 170. 

Magic numbers, 125. 

Magic squares, 125. 

Magnetism, 150. 

Man, 20, 23, 32, 42, 52, 60, 69, 87, 122, 136, 142, 162, 170, 209, 23 - 
232, 250, 257. 

Marriage, 171, 214. 

Masonry, 57. 

Master, 162, 234. 

Matter, 59, 63, 73, 77, 79. 

Medicine, 53. 

Meditation, 45, 266. 

Mediumship, 22, 84, 96, 150, 170, 184. 

Memory, 44, 196, 211. 

Mind, 54,69,80, 149, 157, 163, 193. 

Mind cure, 115, 202. 

Money, 142. 

Motion, 73, 77. 

Motive, 122. 

Muscular consciousness, 165. 

Music, 269. 

Mysteries, 39, 242. 

Mysticism, 26. 

Mystic death, 185. 

Mythology, 86, 216, 245. 

Nature, 52, 124, 206. 

Necessities of life, 56. 

Necromancy, 84, 98, 100, 186. 

Nirvana, 37, 121, 174, 188,243. 

Obedience, 223, 248. 

Objectivity, 66,91. 

Object of life, 55, 220. 

Obsessions, 102, 167, i8l. 

Occultism, 220, 251, 26a 
One, 72, 77, 114, 139. 

Opinions, 30, 183. 

Oupnekhata, 276. 


t 


INDEX, 


:8 r j 

Pain, 182. 

Pantheon, 217. 

Paracelsus, 35, 122, c80- 
Parentage, 60. 

Passion, 112, 135,215 
Path, 255. 

Penetration, 44, 

Pentagram, 275. 

Perception, 48, 55, 66, 70, 152,159. 

Perfection, 38, 41, 

Personality, 37,42. 60, 129, 142, 155, 232, 237,247, 241 , 

Periodicity, 152. 

Perispirit, 100. 

Fhantoms, 90. 

Philosopher’s stone, 254. 

Physicians, 52, 115. 

Planetary spirits, 87, 

Planets, 81, 126. 

Plato, 76, 124. 

Power, 248 
Practice, 220, 261. 

Pralaya, 69. 

Prayer, 44, 137, 238. 

Precious stones, 201. 

Primordial matter, 59. 

Principles, 59, 140,176, 199, 214, 226. 

Progress, 208. 

Prophets, 48. 

Prostitution, 141. 

Psyche, 244, 

Psychometry, 106, 196. 

Purgatory, 154, 180 
Purification, 136, 178. 

Purity, 135, 141. 

Pythagoras, 125. 

Quackery, 115 

Rationalism, 74. 

Reality, 58, 62, 67. 

Reason, 66, 139, 148, 167, 174, 207, 


290 


INDEX . 


Reasoning, 50, 99, 255. 

Redeemer, 40, 95, 234, 237. 

Reforms, 199. 

Regeneration, 173, 185, 236. 

Re incarnation, 107, 187, 210. 

Relativity, 40, 64. 

Religion, 24, 32, 236, 258. 

Renunciation, 36. 

Resurrection, 250. 

Rose, 6, 280. 

Rosicrucian, 239, 240, 280. 

Rules of life, 228. 

Sacrifice, 37. 

Saint Dominic, 91. 

Saint Martin, 266. 

Salvation, 235, 238. 

Schopenhauer, 254. 

Science, 24, 52, 146. 

Self, 37, 233, 237. 

Self-consciousness, 34, 69, 157, 165, 174, 
Self control, 49, 224, 265. 

Self existence, 175. 

Selfishness, 33, m. 

Self knowledge, 31, 183, 206, 257. 
Sensation, 166. 

Senses, 69. 

Separation, 177. 

Seven, 126,139. 

Seven Principles, 79, 119. 

Sex, 120, 143, 

Signature, 105. 

Sight, 163. 

Silence, 265. 

Sin, 124, 147, 250. 

Six, 139. 

Six-pointed Star, 276. 

Sleep, 66, 160, 171. 

Snake, 217. — 

Socrates, 162, 170. 

Somnambulism, 63, 170. 


INDEX. 


291 


Son, 77, 237, 244. 

Sorcery, 95, 101, 191, 295. 

Soul, 52, 60, 78, 80, 118, 142, 152, 177, 196, 244, 262. 
Soul death, 177. 

Sound, 267. 

Space, 63, 73, 78. 

Speculation, 32. 

Sphinx, 5, 57. 

Spheres, 83. 

Spirit, 60, 63, 70, 88, 174, 187, 233. 

Spirits of music, 92. 

Spirits of nature, 87, 232. 

Spiritualism, 84, 95, 100, 150, 185. 

Spiritus Mundi, 204. 

Spleen, 84. 

Subjectivity, 66, 138. 

Substance, 59, 195. 

Succubus, 186. 

Suffering, 238. 

Suggestion, 70. 

Suicide, 101, 145, 186. 

Sun, 115, 213, 253, 262. 

Superstition, 44, 51. 

Symbols, 86, 158, 171, 202, 240, 255. 

Sympathy, 200. 

Temperance, 217. 

Temple, 117, 139, 214, 240. 

Theosophy, 42, 50, 165, 227, 262. 

Thought, 70, 163, 168, 181. 

Thought-transfer, 54, 67, 95, 151, 164, 167, 232. 
Three, 63, 77, 114, 121, 254. 

Time, 65. 

Tincture, 167. 

Trance, 170. 

Transformation, 58, 82, 140, 147, 193. 

Tree of life, 187. 

Tree of knowledge, 360. 

Trinity, 76. 

Tritheim, 204. 

Truth, 27, 44, 48, 171, 235, 243, 261. 

Two, 72. 


29 ^ 


INDEX . 


Unconsciousness, 157, 175. 

Unity, 69, 73, 77, 104, 129, 135, 225. 
Unselfishness, 213, 248. 

Utility, 55, 59, 220. 

Vampires, 145, 186. 

Vanity, 148. 

Vibration, 131, 214, 253. 

Vice, 131, 152. 

Virgin, 121,212. 

Virtue, 131, 152, 215, 249. 

Visions, 148. 

Water, 78. 

Will, 20, 60, 72, 78, 124, 145, 165,167, 206, 2*3 
Will cure, 115. 

Wisdom, 39, 207, 214, 258, 265. 

Witchcraft, 95, 295. 

Woman, 120, 144. 

Word, 237, 244, 262. 

Worlds, 42, 138. 

Worship, 44, 155, 174. 

Yoga practice, 221, 235, 242, 206. 

Zodiac, 6. 


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